Movie Night
by JMK758
Summary: A Girl's Night Out goes horribly awry for Jennifer, Abby and Michelle when, removed from the resources of NCIS, they are embroiled in deception and murder.
1. Costumes

This is my twenty-first NCIS Mystery and the first of my Third Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.  
The usual legal disclaimers apply.  
Please Review. I live for reviews.  
Rating: T or NCis-17. Death, Intrigue and Noir Mystery. You don't need to have seen the classic Vincent Price horror film 'House on Haunted Hill', but it helps.  
The first season commenced with Superheroines, the second with Winged Women. Now for something completely different:

Movie Night  
By: JMK758  
Chapter One  
Costumes

Jennifer Shepherd approaches Gibbs' desk but never has the chance to say a word as Abby Sciuto bursts into the bullpen of her favorite agents, waving a paper about in a barrage of ecstasy.

"I won! I won! I just got the e-mail and I won!" She displays the paper to each of them so quickly no one can read it. "Isn't it fantastic? The odds were seven hundred seventeen thousand, eight hundred forty two to one and I won! I won, you hear me? I _won_!"

"Congratulations, Abby." DiNozzo has no idea what else to say to the woman as she bounds from desk to desk.

She pauses for an instant at his desk - "Yeah, isn't it _great_?", then she's gone toward Michelle's desk. "I didn't believe it would happen but it did!"

The Agents exchange mystified glances. Abby's so out of control it's hard to slow her whirlwind trek about the bullpen. Gibbs, suspecting the woman has already hung out for far too long with her new roommate Samantha Sky, does try.

"Abby, whatever you won had better have made you independently wealthy so you don't need to work here anymore."

She spares him a glance. "Gibbs, you could not possibly spoil my mood this morning-"

"I'd never dream of it."

"because I _won_!"

x

"Abby," Jennifer steps in front of the woman, knowing she risks being run over but she does manage to halt her, "_what_ did you win?"

She briefly displays a printout, an e-mail header and representation of a wordy coupon. The only words Shepherd can glimpse in the flash of black and white are 'Pre-Grand Opening'. "I won -" she clutches the paper to her chest and gives the announcement all the momentous import she can, "a night at the _Pre_-_Grand _Opening -" she relishes every syllable, "- of _Haunted Hill_!"

Far from the trumpet blast the announcement deserves, she's met with silence.

x

"Come _on_, guys! _Haunted Hill_!"

"Yeah, you said that," DiNozzo reminds her.

"Come _on_, Tony. Gibbs I can understand, but _you_? 'House on Haunted Hill'. Not the abortion from '99, the _original_ one."

Tony's eyes take on that distant 'cue card reading' look he sometimes gets when recalling movie data. "William Castle, 1959, written by Robb White. Vincent Price, Carolyn Craig, Carol Ohmart, filmed at–"

"_Yes_! These two fans a few years back, they won a _gazillion _dollars in the lottery - they bought the land on the top of Big Ridge–"

"Oh yeah!" He's caught her enthusiasm. "I remember reading about that."

"Not you too, DiNozzo." Gibbs gives up hope.

"There was some kind of story about turning it into a theme park," he relates for them, "but they couldn't get zoning.

"Well they _got _it," Abby announces gleefully, "and they recreated the house, down to the last bolt - _including _the vat of acid in the basement! They'd wanted to open on Halloween Night, but since I wasn't there they ran into all sorts of problems they couldn't solve in time. They finally did, they're set now for Mardi Gras but they're doing a few tests to work out the kinks. They had a lottery - and _I_ scored a winning ticket!"

"No kidding!" Now her excitement rubs off, but then Tony reconsiders. "But there'd be something _wrong_ about seeing it in color."

"It's not _in _color, that's the beauty of it. Everything from the carpet to the walls to the paintings is brown, black and grey tones - glorious black-and-white. _And_ an animatronic Vincent Price does the welcome in the living room. I get to bring two guests with me this Saturday night. The deal is everyone arrives in costume and persona. You _are_ your character for the night."

"Great! What time do we leave?" he pretends he doesn't see Ziva's glare. DiNozzo can think of many things more pleasant than the on-going fallout from the Millennium Debacle, and spending a Saturday night partying with the 'Mysterious of the Dark' ranks very high on that list.

"We have weekend 1600 to zero, DiNozzo," Gibbs reminds him.

"Oh yeah." But then he brightens. "Say boss, if I can talk Patterson–"

"Sorry, Tony," Abby counters, though she'd enjoy seeing him try to talk Gibbs into this scheme, "you'll have to make a reservation." She turns to Jenny and Michelle, waves the paper enticingly, "Girls Night Out!"

x

Jenny experiences the unpleasant sensation of being trapped between a rock and a Goth place. "Abby, I don't know–"

"Come _on_, it'll be _great_! And it's just one night out. NCIS will be here when you get back."

Jennifer turns to seek Gibbs' help, but he can't argue with that assertion.

"I'm surprised you didn't invite Sammy," she says in one last attempt to find a graceful way to back out. The would-be Apprentice Medical Examiner has just moved in with Abby, a combination Jennifer would pay good money to see for even one evening.

"I mentioned it when I was still hoping to win. She's performing Saturday night with the Washington Renaissance. Besides, she's as likely to go to a haunted house as Gibbs is to perform at Chippendales'."

She's not facing him but can enjoy his expression out of the corner of her eye. She also doesn't miss the speculative gleams in Michelle and Ziva's eyes, or that there is no speculation at all in Jennifer's. She's probably seen a better show.

"Come _on_," she almost pleads. "If you don't I'd have to spend the night with Tony!"

"A fate worse than death," McGee quips. "She might come back a ghost."

Jenny can't help but smile at the pained look on DiNozzo's face, and decides she _does_ deserve a night off. The Millennium Debacle has been draining, and the interviews this week by reporters from 'We' magazine and their 'Women of NCIS' feature had been an unwelcome distraction to NCIS' routine. Each and every woman in the building had been interviewed; Jenny had smiled through some twenty pictures and suspects the others have endured similar disruptions to their routines.

"All right. Thank you, Abby."

They turn to Michelle.

x

The younger woman is even less skilled at hiding her ambivalence. "Well, I - that is - I was really looking forward to spending a quiet weekend with Jimmy."

"Come _on_! You'll have every weekend with him for the rest of your _life_. How many Girls' Night Outs – Girls' Nights Out – do you get these days? And in a Haunted House! It'll be so _cool _- you can't miss it!"

"Hey, wait a minute!" DiNozzo protests. "We have weekend 1600-2400!" He turns to Gibbs, sensing a female conspiracy. "How come we're doing graveyard and she's going to a haunted house? I asked for the time off first, if I could get Patterson to cover for me. Before Abby asked."

"Simple, DiNozzo: Abby arranged to get her off before she came up." He hadn't known then what he'd agreed to and, seeing Michelle's expression, he's not sure he's done his junior agent a favor.

x

Michelle grins, however. Surprised as she is by the behind-her-back fenagling - she'll get Abby back later - the expedition _does_ sound cool, and after all his tormentingover the past months, DiNozzo's expression is just icing on the cake. She comes out from behind her desk to join the manipulatrix. "Okay, count me in."

"Great! We all have to arrive in costume."

"I'm sure that'll be no problem for you, Abby," Jenny predicts.

"You know it." They turn to Michelle.

"Costume?" She makes it sound like Abby's suggested something biologically unnatural.

"_Yes_. Remember? Everyone comes in costume, you _are_ your persona."

"From the movie?"

"Not necessarily, just a costume, but it should personify the real you."

"Or the fake you," Tony chimes in, still annoyed but consoled by enjoying her discomfort.

"Whichever," Abby insists, "it'll be a chance to break out and have some fun."

"You can wear one of your robes," McGee says, thinking of the many colorful, ornate robes the woman keeps as part of her Wiccan magical attire.

She slowly turns on him, back stiff, and her tone drops the room's temperature ten degrees. "Those are for serious business."

"Sorry."

"Then what would you wear?" Abby asks, breaking the mood.

Michelle considers, unable to evade. "Costume?"

"Yes."

"I have to?"

"_Yes_."

She considers, very reluctantly. "Well, I _do_ kind of have something ... I _guess_ I can wear it."

They turn to Shepherd.

x

Jenny looks from one woman to the other and feels trapped. The last thing she'd have given any thought to for this weekend would be a costume party. Now, sandwiched between the 'Mysterious of the Dark' and an avowed Witch, she feels quite out of her depth. "I don't have a costume."

"Don't worry," Abby assures her. "I have the _perfect _one for you."

"I'm scared of your costumes."

She doesn't like Abby's smile.

xxx

After an impromptu round-trip home for the enthusiastic scientist; Abby, Michelle and Cynthia Sumner stand at the Director's locked office door, calling through it. "Come on, Jenny," Abby urges, "let's see how it looks."

"How did I ever let you talk me into this?" the woman's voice filters through the door.

"Come on, just give it a chance," Abby favors her friends with a conspiratorial wink.

"It'll be fine," Cynthia adds.

"I'm going to be among strangers. I can't do this."

"Strangers you will _never_ see again. Just for once let your hair down."

The lock clicks off and the door swings inward. "You had to mention hair."

The hair in question is a tall black wig which, though it hangs in voluminous waves down her back, is coiffed to some nine inches upon her head and requires Jenny to be cautious in keeping it balanced.

Her erect posture is also essential because the long black dress clings closer than most lovers, except in front where it's open from shoulders down to a point a fraction above her navel. The view of her décolletage is impressive; the material stops a fraction of an inch from uncovering her areolas.

Jenny points a black lacquered fingernail at the Goth Girl. "_You_ are the one who's supposed to be the 'Mistress of the Dark'."

"I'm 'Mysterious', or so they tell me. You're the 'Mistress', Elvira."

"Does it have to be so _tight_?" Jennifer tugs at the generous front, then must give up. The material doesn't yield an inch and she risks displaying the charms she would hide with her tugging. She must trust the double sided tape that lines the inside. She's never been big on trust.

"That is so _hot_!" Cynthia exclaims, amazed at her boss' new image. Even without Elvira's signature overly mascaraed eyes, the effect is staggering.

"Wow!" Michelle exclaims, "Director, unlike Sammy I'm not into women - but you are - _w__ow_!"

Jenny covers her face. "I can't believe this."

"Stand up straight," Abby urges.

Jenny glares at her between spread fingers. "I _have_ to or this dress will flash everyone in the room, tape or no tape." She drops her hands. "How does she do it?"

"You've never done double reverse twin spinning tassels."

Jenny doesn't want this one explained.

"You've got the equipment to hold it." Cynthia assures her. Of that there can be no doubt.

"Thanks," she says flatly, not at all thankful for the situation. "Abby, you invited me to a party and I _am_ grateful - but after this you are really going to _owe_ me!"

xxx

Late Saturday evening Abby and Jennifer enter the bullpen to collect the third member of their haunted trio. Overcoats are the rule of the night. All that's visible under those coats are boots; bright red leather for Abby, shiny black for Michelle. The long black hem of Jennifer's dress reaches under her overcoat to black high heeled slippers.

"Well, Probette," Tony says as Michelle joins the other women, "I hope you have a really good time." His wish lacks sincerity, since the team's rotation has led them to a Saturday night shift - minus one. Even Ziva, seated across from Tony, cannot raise any sincere wish for her partner's enjoyment.

"I will," Michelle promises Tony as she joins the pair of similarly disguised women. The only visible distinction in them is that Shepherd's black and white mascara is artful but heavy.

Tony, still stinging at being unable to get the evening off, turns his aggravated glare on the smiling women. "Well, if _I'm _stuck here at least I have the satisfaction that the Probie is too."

"Well, Tony, I don't have to be anywhere tonight," McGee counters with vast satisfaction. "I'm not meeting Shav until tomorrow after Mass."

"Sure, rub it in. What is it this time? A play? A movie?"

"Nope. Pre-Cana conference with Father Donaldson."

"Sounds like fun. _Not_."

"Maybe, but it's the rules. And if a regular couple can't duck them, Shav certainly can't."

"I'd think she could teach them. Hasn't she offered private lessons?"

"She can. She does." He's answered the first question and ignored the second. "She can't." He smiles. "Catch-22. But _then _we have tickets to see 'Wicked'."

"Besides," Abby interjects, happy to needle the man, "aren't _you _supposed to be planning Tim's bachelor party, Mister Best Man?"

"Got that well in hand," he assures her. "The entertainment is illegal in eleven states. And _you _can't come."

"Don't worry," she smirks, "I'm going to do _that _at the Bachelorette party."

Tony can't help it, his mouth falls open.

x

Before even her two companions can recover from that declaration, Abby checks her watch and announces: "Only twenty minutes, girls." Jennifer gives her an aborted glare but says nothing. "We should get downstairs."

"Come on," DiNozzo urges, "time for the unveiling."

"You'll have to find it on the Internet - if anyone posts anything," Abby counters, not admitting her certainty that the House's website will be crowded with Opening Night photos.

The look Tim gives them shows he's confident he'll find plenty of material with which to embarrass them.

Each woman has a single small overnight case that contains camera, make-up and essentials. The management had published a disclaimer refusing responsibility for lost or damaged merchandise, so they recommended nothing extra be brought.

"Have you seen the film?" Abby asks as she picks her case up from beside her red booted feet.

"Jimmy and I rented it the other day."

"I haven't had time," Jennifer admits.

"Then you'll just have to be surprised. The terms are exactly like in the movie. We'll be picked up at 9:30, rendezvous with the other guests and get to the house about 10:30. We can bring cameras but no cell phones."

"No phones?" Jennifer doesn't like that condition.

"They didn't exist in the 50's."

"Neither did digital cameras."

"We're supposed to be interacting with everyone else at the party, not with Ma Bell. Besides, there's a lot of electronic equipment that create the special effects. Cell phones can interfere with them."

"All right." She doesn't like being out of touch; NCIS is a world-wide, 24/7 operation. "Gibbs, you're in charge until I get back." She doesn't need to look at the man to feel his twin lasers bore into her. There are advantages to being Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge and, for Gibbs, disadvantages as well. Shepherd isn't sure who'll be unhappier, him or Cynthia Sumner. Hopefully they can make it through the rest of the evening without killing each other.

x

"At midnight," Abby continues, "the doors are locked and everyone must stay until eight in the morning. Anyone who wants to leave must do so before midnight, but they're not going to get paid."

"Paid?" This is the first time Shepherd has heard about payment.

"Paid in the good time the rest of us are going to have."

"Come _on_," Tony urges again, unable to endure the mystery, "you _can't _come down here and not show us."

Abby glances at her friends and shrugs. "It's only fair. When we get there there'll be a grand unveiling."

"Well, it probably needs the wig for the full effect," Jenny says as she opens her coat and slips it off. The long, tight black dress is slit on the right side from hem to hip to bare one supple leg. The slice is so high that she'd had to choose her highest black underwear - or go without. As it is, it's a near thing.

The top has given her the most problems. Slit almost to her navel, there's not enough material to draw together for decent coverage, tape or no tape. A small silver dagger low to her stomach, just below the open point and far too suggestive in its placement for her taste, is the only accent.

"Believe me, director," Tony ventures when he can find his voice, "it doesn't need the wig."

"Abby, I'm never going to forgive you," Jenny vows as she turns toward Ziva, her back to DiNozzo and she tugs ineffectually at the overly generous top. She sees movement to her right. "Agent McGee, if you aim that camera-phone you are going to need _Ducky _to get it back."  
"Um, yes ma'am."

x

From her bag, Abby pulls out a red headpiece. At first no one is sure if the framing headpiece is supposed to be a stylized 'M' or horns. When she takes off her long coat, she wears a scarlet body suit enhanced with deep pink sheer nylons on legs and arms.

Though the top cups rather than covers her breasts, the sheer, deep pink material tints her flesh to her neck. She pulls on a pair of red gloves and then throws a long, flowing red cape over her shoulders. It reaches nearly to her heels.

"Wanda Maximoff!" Tim exclaims with unalloyed delight. Abby grips the left edge of the cape and turns about to show off the costume. Even without the voluminous cape, her classic 'Scarlet Witch' covers the two 'Saint' figures at each shoulder blade and the large ornate Cross in the middle of her back. The spider web at her neck is half obscured by the cloak.

"I knew I couldn't fool you, McGee. Difference is, the Scarlet Witch won't put a hex on you if you try to take a picture."

"_I _will," Michelle warns.

"Considering she's the _real_ witch, Probie," Tony quips, "I'd listen."

"What about you, Michelle?" Tim presses. All he can see are gold earrings resembling large stylized gold bats which hang by one wing from each lobe, each four inches in wingspan. The only other distinction is the hair styling she'd had done for that 'We' magazine article, which leaves her fuller and curvier than her normal straight locks.

Michelle holds the coat closed. "No."

"Come on," Abby urges. "We did."

"I changed my mind."

"From what?" Jenny quips, never entirely sure about the psychic Wiccan.

"You didn't see it either?" Gibbs asks. Now he's intrigued.

"No," Jenny says.

"She's being stubborn," Abby adds. She and Jennifer step to either side on the woman, tower over her. No one will let the blushing woman slip away.

x

"_Oh all right_!" Michelle unbuttons the coat and throws it off her shoulders, lets it fall to a cloth puddle at her black boots. Her defiant stance dares anyone to say a word.

Tim's eyes are widest. His mouth falls open – and open – and open.

"Whoooaaa," Abby breathes, summing up everyone's feelings.

Michelle's black leather boots are calf high but the costume - what there is of it - is as scarlet as Abby's with far less material. Attached by a gold circlet at her throat to a high stand-up white collar, the costume is a pair of impressively thin strips that flare outward from the circlet in a half-hearted attempt to cover her breasts. They then reach down to join into a brief high-hip monokini bottom. A stylized gold bat on the front of the monokini provides an attractive distraction.

"_Vampirella_…." Tim draws the name out in a long breath and wishes that he could risk pulling out his camera phone, having to settle for his best memory.

"I can name nine nude beaches on which you would _still _be arrested," Ziva warns.

"What about the fangs?" Tony quips to jump-start his mind.

"I'm wearing them," Michelle insists, smiling to display a set of points barely a quarter-inch long.

"They're very … dainty," Shepherd grants.

"You'll never draw blood with those," Abby predicts.

"Not a problem. Whenever I wear this, all of Jimmy's blood goes to just one place."

xx

At 9:30 a black limo bearing placards for 'Price Funeral Home' gains admittance through the main gate and pulls in front of NCIS Headquarters. The three women get in, their trip to the macabre fantasy night under way.


	2. House

Chapter Two  
The House

The black cars rendezvous at the base of the hill with an equally somber hearse and commence a procession through the night up the lonely winding road overlooking Fox, Virginia.

The agents' driver answers no questions during the dark trip, offers no conversation except to say he and his fellows are drivers only, that they know nothing of why they bring people to a house tonight instead of the usual route to a cemetery. It's a lie, of course, but the man doesn't step out of character any more than the women are supposed to.

It's easier for him.

"It's empty now," Abby assures Jennifer, pointing ahead to the somber hearse, "but after a night on Haunted Hill, who knows?"

"Thank you so much."

The darkness is especially unpleasant because only the hearse uses its headlights while the black limos each navigate by the taillights of the preceding vehicle. Their taciturn driver wears dark glasses; Jennifer prays they're night-vision glasses but she can't dredge up any confidence.

The isolation is more oppressive to Shepherd when she thinks of the empty space in the small black purse on her left wrist. Her shield and gun are in the bag but her phone is not and she feels naked without it. It's even worse to be without her phone than to be in this scandalous dress she doesn't quite wear under her closed overcoat.

Only Michelle is less dressed. She is, in fact, 90 percent naked but that doesn't make Jennifer feel any better. She feels as though, as Elvira, she's stepped out of an adolescent's boob-tube fantasy and can only try to imagine what the younger woman feels like.

She does know that Michelle is discovering that being Vampirella in the privacy of her bedroom with a doubtlessly enthusiastic partner is vastly different than portraying her before a house full of strangers. Jennifer doesn't envy her.

x

The caravan ascends toward the overcast night, so not even the moon they know to be full lends any light to the gloomy hill.

Finally, after for Jennifer an edge-of-her-seat trek beside a black cliff where she's clutched the armrest until her fingers were white, the cars arrive at the tremendous ornate white house.

Each car in turn pauses at the entrance to discharge its passengers. Where in the movie the cars had one occupant apiece, two to three people exit each car that pauses tonight. It's not particularly cold tonight; overcoats provide what protection they may from both the late February night and from premature revelations of adopted personas until the moment of unveiling.

The assembled guests gather after the limos depart and look over the imposing white structure. Its irregular carved walls give a general sense of dread rather than the promise of a good time. The white stones are each carved with a squared pinwheel shape which lends a certain unity to the blocked-off architectural chaos.

This is a place of somber dread, a place where the world of the living impinges on that of the dead, and the dead fight back.

The imposing building, far larger and longer than Jennifer had expected, appears to have been congealed rather than built. It's a wide, irregular, squared-off structure perched on the edge of the hill; sometimes tall, sometimes short, owing no regard to reasonable architecture. To Jennifer it resembles the product of a madman's drug-induced nightmare, and the fact that Abby and Michelle regard it with bright smiles does nothing to help her mood.

"Exactly like the movie," Abby declares with vast satisfaction. She'd expected no less, but seeing this place barely visible in the darkness is far more gratifying than she'd imagined. She can't see to the far end of the house and the dim light that gropes its way out barred windows is from candles. She already knows there's no electricity to be found - in the public settings. She's sure the controls, however, are state-of-the-art but she'll gladly pass on seeing them in favor of the illusion. She's has never seen the movie set lighted to daylight intensity and feels no desire for the dawn.

x

Though the black cars abandoned them the hearse remains in the middle of the courtyard, standing station as though awaiting its grim burden. Heavy clouds obscure everything, leaving the black car, thirty feet away, hidden in the darkness.

The men and women gather in the courtyard in anticipation of a night of revelry. All, however, seem affected by the somber atmosphere. The threatening clouds accent the gloom and the house's ethereal fingers clutch the night while dark shadows cover their souls.

x

The coated guests are hesitant, uncomfortable strangers to one another. There are seven winners of the contest, each of whom was allowed to bring up to two guests. The lone occupant of the lead car just before the NCIS agents, a short man of middle age and heavy grief, addresses the others.

"The ghosts are moving tonight, restless, hungry." His somber tone befits the night, but by his words the guests recognize the dark suited, slightly built man. He resembles Elisha Cook Jr. who had played the original role, and his makeup recreates the character with haunting detail.

"May I introduce myself? I'm Watson Pritchard, and in just a minute I'll show you the only really haunted house in the world. Since it was built nearly a century ago seven people, including my brother, have been murdered in it. Since then, I've owned this house. I've only spent one night here, and when they found me in the morning, I was almost dead."

He turns and leads them to the door, leaving the large iron gate, wrought with a fine disregard for shape or reason, behind them. It swings closed with a grinding of hinges. Abby stops, staring at it until it clangs shut. She can find no sensors in the dark, not even a mechanism of locomotion. It seems to be manipulated by–

"Abby," Michelle calls back quietly, "no forensicing."

She smiles, catches up to them. "That's not a word."

"Just the same," Jennifer admonishes, "you wanted us here. 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain'."

x

As the group approaches the imposing steel front door, it too moves of its own volition. It was a chilling effect of ghostly welcome in 1959, now it depends upon the whine of unoiled hinges. The door swings open to display a spacious foyer covered with cobwebs and illuminated by a crystal chandelier. A wide staircase directly in from the door turns left into the shadows.

Cobwebs cover the antique furniture as though to forbid anyone to sit on the ancient chairs, while dusty tables do the same. Gas lamps in each wall and candles on tables provide gloomy illumination but don't seem to reach the shadows; the total is less than half of normal room light. The antique furnishings, convincingly over a century old, recreate the air of the original movie.

Abby is impressed by the scent of the place. The builders have recreated the 'old house mustiness' one would expect in a hundred-year-old house, not in one of less than a quarter that many months.

She would dash up the staircase, search for Vincent Price's room, lie on the death bed of Carol Olmert, find the skeleton with which Price, as Frederick Loren, disposed of his adversary. Like a five-year-old at Christmas, she wants to do it all now; the adult in her barely restrains the wild Goth child.

For now.

x

The large table upon and around which the men and women set their travel cases is black, the large candlelit chandelier is silver; the rest of the room is decorated in glorious black and white. It's not those extremes, but with the exception of browns and various shades of grey there is no color at all to walls, floor, ceiling, carpets, paintings – nothing.

"Dreary," one woman says.

"Hinky in all its glory," Abby declares. She restrains herself, with difficulty, from leaping about and finding everything now. There's the banister where Annabelle Loren hung herself, the organ in the next room is the one whose ghostly playing drove Nora Manning into shrieking hysterics, there in the corner of the living room is the black vase that–

"Only the ghosts in this house are glad we're here." 'Watson Pritchard' assures the woman who had pronounced all this glory dreary. He too is made up in colorless tones that recreate the sense of the character he so closely resembles. Abby wonders how much of the resemblance is natural, how much is enhancement and wonders if she wants to find out.

Or does she want more to follow her friends' advice and not peer too closely behind the curtain?

Anyway she, Jennifer and Michelle agree, sotto vocé, that the reproduction is an excellent job.

x

Michelle steps closer to her friends, whispers to Jenny, "There are no ghosts here. I sense noth–_Ow_!" She turns to Abby, holding the back of her head. The slap had turned the heads of several nearby guests. "What was _that _for?"

"'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain'," Abby reminds her with a smirk.

"You _hit _me. Not even _Gibbs _hits me."

"Why not?" Jennifer steps in before anger boils out of control. She's one of several who have been curious about that exception ever since Michelle had come down from Legal to rejoin the team.

Michelle turns her glare up to her. "He _knows_ better."

x

As if to deny Pritchard's assertion of the welcoming nature of the spiritual inhabitants, the guests begin to remove coats and jackets, their alternate personas revealed. Superman and Batman are somehow both in and out of place, though they seem not to know one another. Their reactions seem based more on the coincidence than familiarity.

Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker and a Cowboy join with the Phantom of the Opera, Pirate Jack Sparrow, a Doctor in white lab coat and stethoscope, a striped Prisoner and Doctor Who with his crop of curly brown hair, long maroon coat and absurdly long scarf.

The women's costumes are equally eclectic; Slave girl Leia Organa compliments black garbed Skywalker. Supergirl's elasticized top stretches the irregular pentagon to impressive limits and ends a millimeter below her breasts while the blue material resumes below the bare midriff as the smallest skirt Abby has seen in months. Batgirl, whose costume is considerably tighter than that worn by Yvonne Craig, gravitates to Batman.

There's a Nurse whom one is unlikely to be fortunate enough to encounter in a Doctor's office, though she got out of the car with him. Cleopatra, Barbarella, the Bride of Frankenstein sans the monster are next. Jennifer no longer feels as bad about her own wig.

There's a Police Woman whose uniform leaves little to the imagination as she guards the striped prisoner, but her handcuffs at her hips are suggestive of other things than guarding. To Jennifer, though she knows it's a cosmic coincidence since these people are strangers to one another, it seems that most of the women have outfitted themselves from a Playboy catalogue. Looking at Leia, whose gold filigree breast shields couldn't shield a tit mouse, she no longer considers Michelle underdressed.

Among the women is a tall blonde beauty who wears a skin hugging black dress accented with a wide gold sash draped about her waist to hang down the right side, a reproduction of the dress worn by Carol Ohmart when she portrayed Annabelle Loren. When the NCIS Agents doff their own coats, headwear is set and Abby dons her flowing scarlet cape; Elvira, Wanda Maximoff and Vampirella join the group.

Elvira checks the double sided tape that holds her black dress secure, not trusting the tape to fulfill its advertized claims. She notices she attracts the attention of other guests with every move and stops fussing. She fears a deep breath will make the tape give way to cause her to flash the room, and resolves once again to be very careful.

x

It's Michelle's costume, however, that garners the most attention. Vampirella's scarlet bands draw gaze to her generous décolletage. The straps, which leave her back bare and make little attempt to hide her front, end their scarlet lives in a high-hip monokini. This is accented by a stylized gold bat at the very spot she fears most of the men in the room will spend the night watching with too close attention.

She's too aware that, from the back, her long black hair covers the white faux collar and makes her appear to be wearing only the scarlet bottom. She forces herself to push embarrassment back. 'Sexy,' she reminds herself, forcing the thought into her posture. 'Confidence. I wear almost this little at the beach.'

She won't allow the thought that she's not at the beach.

'I've _already _worn this longer than I ever have with Jimmy,' she chides herself a moment later. 'I'm absolutely crazy to put this on.' Seeing the eyes of several men on her, she tries to think only of Jimmy and put that into the false smile she returns.

The black leather calf-high boots only accent her charms and make her appear even more unclothed. She must be very cautious of her posture, as the bands aren't connected to her body with double sided tape.

"You sure you don't want the tape?" Jennifer whispers in her left ear.

She tries to hang onto her confidence. She will _not _back out now. "Jimmy doesn't mind when I flash him," she mutters to her friends, trying to stave off a blush.

"Neither will anyone else," Elvira predicts.

x

Wanda can't conceal that she's impressed by her friend's daring. Despite her love of outré fashions, not for _anything _would she go to a house among strangers nearly 90 percent nude. Vampirella's attempts to stave off embarrassment, however, keep her from saying so.

The only remnant of Michelle's real life is the inch wide silver circle, five pointed star and cross jewel that hangs between her breasts. It doesn't seem to enhance her confidence, however.

"I should never have done this," Vampirella whispers.

"Too late now," Elvira reminds her aloud.

"You look hot," Wanda enthuses, trying to get her embarrassed friend into the mood of the party.

"She certainly does," Captain Jack Sparrow agrees, the pirate drifting over to them. "I wouldn't mind risking a little bite myself."

x

Vampirella may look hot but the stare she gives the pirate transforms the room into an Arctic wasteland. "You'll have to settle for Keira Knightley."

"Whoa," he says, holds up his hands. "I didn't mean to offend anyone, I was just thinking how …. Look, we got off on the wrong foot, I'm sorry." He extends his hand, which Michelle reluctantly takes. "Jack Sparrow, Pirate extraordinaire. And you are?"

She holds up her left hand. "Married."

"Ah. Well …. Have a good time at the party," he says, lets go of her hand and slinks off.

When Vampirella turns back to her companions, she sees they're not happy. "What?"

"That was beyond cold," Wanda admonishes. "That was _rude_."

She shrugs. "This vamp's a bitch." She's more embarrassed by the encounter, which she's sure is to be the first of many, than she wants them to see. She longs for her coat, but knows her friends won't let her back out now. "But maybe I should tone it down a bit," she admits.

"A _big_ bit." Elvira suggests, still unable to take her mind off her own display, both down toward the silver dagger and up her right side to her hip. 'At least I'mwearing more,' she thinks, '_if _this damned tape doesn't give way.' She feels that one deep breath, one too-fast turn and she'll give the opening night crowd a display that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

"But why did you wear it," Wanda asks Vampirella, glad her own scarlet and pink costume leaves only her face exposed, "or even have it, if it makes you so uncomfortable?"

"Jimmy has a big thing for Vampirella. She's kind of a fantasy for him from way back."

"Do tell," the faux witch urges the real one with a lascivious smile, grateful to learn some inside scoop on her friend. "_How _big a thing?"

"So you bought it for him?" Elvira cuts in quickly.

"He bought it for me."

"But you wear it," she points out.

"Well ..." Vampi blushes, flinching, "He's very persuasive when he's naked."


	3. Tour

Chapter Three  
Tour

Elvira, Vampirella and Wanda mingle with the other costumed guests in the foyer and all jump when the steel door slams shut with a loud bang. The Phantom of the Opera and the black clad Luke Skywalker rush to it and tug hard.

Skywalker hits it. "Solid steel."

"I'd expect no less," the Phantom replies.

Above them the candlelit chandelier starts to sway ominously, crystalline tinkling fills the room. Those familiar with the 'House on Haunted Hill' film step well out of the way and after a few moments it stops. "They're sure not going to shatter a perfectly good chandelier every night," the Phantom says.

"You should know," Barbarella quips.

Cleopatra steps under the hanging fixture and stares up at it. "I wonder how they made it move like that," she muses. "It was really good."

She shrieks when it drops toward her.

Jack Sparrow dives, grabs her and both fall to the floor. The chandelier stops an inch from the floor, dangles for a moment and slowly rises back into position.

"Not _funny_!" Cleopatra exclaims as Sparrow helps her up.

"You mean you didn't see that one coming?" Annabelle Loren asks.

"_No_."

"Cleo doesn't seem to be getting into the spirit," slave Leia Organa observes.

"I am Queen of Egypt," Cleopatra says haughtily, clearly intending to pull rank on the princess. "You do not drop chandeliers on Queens."

"You do on the Bronx," Batman observes.

That elicits a collective groan that at least seems to cool the royal wrath.

x

The group enters the large living room beside the foyer with the sense that the party is well under way. A suited Vincent Price stands motionless at a table before the double doors midway along the long left wall. On the black table before him is set a row of closed miniature black coffins. Price looks exactly as he had when he portrayed Frederick Loren in the original film.

"Is it a statue?" Barbarella asks.

"Wax figure," slave Leia opines. The gold filigree that doesn't attempt to cover her breasts glints in the light of the many candles and wall sconces.

"Didn't you read the literature?" Doctor Who asks in a tone as caustic as his original could manage. "It's an anamatropic robot."

"Animatronic," Wanda Maximoff corrects, trying not to laugh. This Doctor displays none of the scientific knowledge of the original, something she's very glad to find out before giving in to her initial inclination to approach him.

"Whatever. Why doesn't he say something?"

"I'm sure he will – when he has something to say."

x

Batman and Indiana Jones inspect Price while the others drift away to explore the room. With the exception of the blazing fire in the hearth in the left wall, the monochromatic recreation of the original set is amazing.

Wanda notices that Sparrow, having struck out with Vampirella, has turned his attention to Batgirl. She wishes him better luck, noting that Batman hovers four feet away.

x

Watson Pritchard stands by the organ at the right wall, the white keys of which are stained in brown blood. "George Enders murdered his wife in her bed," he relates in haunted tones. "The police found him the next morning sitting here playing, her blood on his hands."

As the people look about the impressive room, Pritchard drifts toward the couch. He pulls from a box beside the couch's arm a large butcher knife, slams the box lid to snare their attentions and brandishes the wide blade.

"This is what she used on my brother and her sister," he says dismally. "Hacked them to pieces." He meets the eyes of each of the guests, his expression more melancholy than menacing. "We found parts of the bodies all over the house, in places you wouldn't think." He's drawn to yet revolted by the blade, his manner haunted by tragic memory.

"Funny thing is, the heads have never been found. Hands and feet and things like that, but no heads." He slips into a haunted reverie. "You can hear them at night. They whisper to each other ... and then cry."

His words, though familiar to most, produce chills in the revelers.

"Didn't someone throw his wife into a vat of acid in the cellar?" the briefly attired Nurse obliges.

"There's been a murder almost every place in this house."

xxx

Pritchard leads the costumed throng down a dark staircase to a door at the foot of the steps. Once through it into the huge, dimly lit room, they're surrounded by huge kegs of wine laying or piled atop one another. The room is surrounded by a multitude of doors, between each of which a gas lamp sconce attempts to illuminate the room. The cellar is dim, shadowy, and morbid doom hangs heavy in the air.

When the guests are assembled in the middle of the huge room, Pritchard steps over to a large wheel set into the side wall, a rope attached to it. "All this belonged to a Mr. Norton," he tells them, his voice reverberating, "who didn't die here, he was electrocuted later." He turns the crank and the pulley begins to lift a huge trap door in the floor's center in front of them.

The space below is filled almost to the brim with liquid which, though colorless, is black against the vat walls. "Mr. Norton did a good deal of experimenting with wines," Pritchard continues the chilling account over the creak of ancient, unoiled hinges, "but his wife didn't think it was any good, so he filled the vat with acid and threw her in."

"If Dracula doesn't stop _staring _at me," Vampirella whispers to Wanda, "_he's _going in."

Wanda tries not to laugh, thinking the King of the Undead is the least of the petite woman's admirers, or worries.

x

Pritchard approaches the group as they stare down into the quiescent liquid, each with his or her apprehensions. Not everyone is sure if the liquid is wine or acid. "She was supposed to stay down, but the bones came up."

He steps behind them, continues to speak as he passes. "It's a funny thing, but none of the murders here were just ordinary; just shooting or stabbing. They've all been sort of wild, violent, different." He comes to the edge of the vat on their left. "Be careful you don't fall in."

"You mean there's still _acid _in there?" Barbarella demands, taking her cue from the movie.

Pritchard looks about. Under a table behind and to their left he finds the desiccated corpse of a rat caught in an old trap. He carries it to the edge of the vat, reaches out as far as he can so the splash will not endanger anyone, releases the trap and the corpse falls in.

Immediately the water begins to froth. "Destroys everything with hair and flesh," he turns toward them, his tone even more morbid, "just leaves the bones." The dissolution diminishes, the rat's skeleton floats to the surface. Several guests back away, repulsed in spite of having expected this.

As Pritchard leads them back to the door and the steps beyond, several people, recalling what happened later in the film, show no desire to explore any of the surrounding rooms beyond the huge wine barrels.

Vampirella hangs back so she and Wanda are the last to ascend the wooden staircase, and she whispers to Wanda, "That really wasn't ...?"

Wanda looks back to her, shifts her shoulders so she can see the vampiress past her own high scarlet cloak top. "Really wanna know?"

Vampirella's not sure she does. "Yes."

"The bones were real, the skin was sodium with an extra catalyst additive and it dissolved in water."

"You're sure?"

"Well, I wouldn't recommend a bath based on a few moments looking at it, but I'm pretty sure." She takes a few more steps, then stops. "Kind of." A few more steps, she looks back and smirks at the apprehension in Vampirella's eyes. "I think."

xx

In an upstairs bedroom Pritchard points to a large dried stain on the ceiling. "See that stain? Blood. A young girl was killed here," he fixes them with haunted eyes, "and whatever got her wasn't human."

Cleopatra stares up at the discoloration and steps forward to get a better look.

"Don't stand there," Pritchard cautions her.

But his warning comes too late. When she stops, surprised at his sharpness, she feels moisture upon the back of her hand. Looking down, she's horrified to see drops of red blood color her skin. She looks up. Drops of fresh blood fall from the center of the dry stain.

"What the hell?" she demands, backing away in disgust.

"It's too late, they've marked you."

"_What_? Who the hell would want to mark me?"

"Caesar," Supergirl quips.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Didn't you see the movie?" the Cowboy asks.

"_No_! Bob was supposed to play Marc Anthony but he got sick and said I should come anyway."

"No wonder." The Policewoman's tone is almost sympathetic. The others suspect she's glad she's not the one who's been stained.

Cleopatra gestures helplessly, she has nothing with which to get the blood off. The Cowboy hands her a handkerchief but the red liquid only spreads, staining her hand. "Oh this is just great. It won't come _off_." Her voice rises as she scrubs at her stained hand.

"I'm sure it will," Sparrow says, his reasonable tone implies all it needs is to be washed.

Cleopatra tries to take the reminder in good grace, but for her the evening is no longer fun.

xx

The tour continues both downstairs and up in blithe disregard for order; they ascend and descend at whim, as though the intent is more to confuse than to orient. In due time Pritchard leads them into a chapel. Before the white altar a large mahogany coffin rests between two lit candles set on tall silver stands. There's room for twelve people to pray, three pairs of prei dieus on each side of the center aisle.

"There was no chapel in the original or the remake," Barbarella objects.

"There are many rooms I didn't get to show the others," Pritchard counters. "Trust me, this chapel has always been here. Ann Francis met her death here, her throat slashed as she stood praying before that Altar. They had her wake here, as they had so many others."

"And now a coffin is ready for the next one," Batman observes.

"By morning it may well be full," Pritchard predicts. "Possibly we will need more than one."

"It's a nice one," Wanda says appreciatively as she runs her finger along the polished mahogany, wondering how it would feel to lie in this one. The velvet padding looks so comfortable. Later, when no one else is around, she plans to get either Elvira or Vampirella to take a picture of her in it. "This coffin has character, a sense of its own history."

"You're creeping me out, Scarlet," Leia says as Wanda strokes the carved side. "You'd think you sleep in one."

"Stranger things have happened," Wanda assures her.

xx

Pritchard leads them from the third floor chapel to the main floor kitchen, which is large enough to feed a huge household. On a tremendous stove stands a large pot, covered but bubbling over a flame. He points to a knife rack that stands next to the stove. "That's where my sister-in-law got the knife she hacked my brother and her sister to pieces with.

"Over here ..." he leads them to a closet, opens it to reveal cleaning supplies, mops, buckets and brooms, but everything is stained with blood. "They found some of my brother's body here. His right leg was in that bucket and his left hand was hanging from that hook, and his hand was holding his left foot. The rest of him was scattered throughout the house." He shuts the door, turns to them. "They never found his right hand, though." He starts for the door, beckons for the group to follow.

Annabelle Loren, unable to resist her curiosity as to who had set the large pot to boiling on the stove, takes the pot holder hanging beside the stove and lifts off the lid.

A right hand reaches out for her from a blood soup. She shrieks and the lid crashes to the floor with a resounding bang.

Most of the guests stop, startled and worse. Pritchard doesn't slow down.

xx

Leading them down a second floor hall, Pritchard is about to tell the group something when he's interrupted by a low moan which seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. "Listen, the ghosts are restless. I fear they intend to move against us."

Batgirl has stopped beside a hanging arras, the image of an armored knight depicted on the brown / gray tapestry. She shrieks when the cloth reaches out and grabs her.

She breaks out of the grip, but when the white smocked Doctor pulls the arras aside, there's only a blank wall. Loud mocking laughter fills the building.

The guests, giving in to the mounting dread, try to get back into the spirit of the tour. Batgirl tries to slow her pounding heart.


	4. Welcome

Chapter Four  
Welcome

Watson Pritchard leads the costumed guests down another dim corridor. An arras is suspended at the end where they'd come up the candlelit stairs and Batgirl gives it a wide berth. The other end of the long hallway leads off to a blind right turn. "These will be your rooms tonight - if you dare to be alone in them. Only this room is off limits, it is reserved for your host." He turns the knob, opens the door and grants them admittance into the 'off-limits' bedroom.

Not everyone can fit into the first group, though Abby makes certain she's right behind Pritchard. When she's in the candle-lit bedroom, her heart leaps for joy.

There's a large bed to their left that's straight from the nineteenth century. It's covered by a canopy and coated with a layer of dust probably undisturbed since those long gone days. On the bureau beside the door stands a silver bucket with an open bottle of champagne. Two empty glasses stand on the table on their right, and next to the glasses rests a hairbrush replete with long fine strands of blonde hair.

"Feel good to be back for your party?" the white smocked doctor asks Annabelle Loren.

"'I told you, darling'," she replies with an arctic smile, "'it's not my party'."

Pritchard turns to see Leia standing beside the bed, regarding it and Skywalker with a speculative smile. "You don't want to be thinking that," he tells her.

"Trust me, my dear," Annabelle says, stepping beside their guide, "any woman who uses that bed comes to a sad end."

As the first group moves out, Pritchard favors Loren with a grateful look.

xx

In the Library, every wall is lined with a staggering collection of antique books. The Scarlet Witch walks slowly along one wall, scanning the titles, finding an eclectic variety. She pulls one off the shelf and ruffles through it, disappointed though quite unsurprised to find the pages are blank.

"Who died in here?" the policewoman asks.

"The Literary Critic," Wanda mutters too softly to be heard.

"William Deluca was found one morning seated in that chair," Pritchard points to a large leather chair behind a desk, "a dagger plunged into his throat. His hands were raised as though he'd been grappling with someone, and thus he was found in full rigor in the morning."

"Cadaveric spasm," Wanda corrects absently.

"Excuse me?" Pritchard hadn't expected to be interrupted.

"Oh, it was a cadaveric spasm, not rigor mortis. That's the only way it could've happened. You see, rigor mortis begins at the extremities some four hours after death, comes to full term by twelve, will last up to twelve hours more and then gradually reverse until the body is flaccid again by the end of twelve more. A cadaveric spasm, if it occurs, will happen immediately."

"Really?" Rather than being annoyed, Pritchard seems interested by the correction.

"Really. It occurs in extremely violent physical confrontations. The corpse is frozen in place at the moment of death," she assures him with a smile. "It's caused by the overutilization and depletion of adenosine triphosphate during extreme activity–" Elvira, beside her, jabs her elbow into Wanda's rib. The witch, in turn, becomes aware of her audience.

"We must talk later," Pritchard tells her.

"Love to," Wanda assures him, certain she'll have an excellent time.

"You seem to have almost as much experience with death as I've had."

"I could knock your monochromatic socks off."

x

But as the group walks out, Wanda hears a sharp whisper from behind her. "If you don't refocus your _eyeballs _I'll knock something of _yours _off." She turns, expecting to see Vampirella confronting Dracula, but it is Cleopatra, hand covering her chest, glaring back and up at the white coated doctor.

As Wanda continues out the door Vampirella is beside her, and the petite woman mimes a sharp downward look. It's enough to tell Wanda what had set this off; the doctor had been standing behind Cleopatra, looking over her shoulder.

Wanda casts a quick glance back from the candlelit hall at the doctor's companion, deciding she could take the blonde Nurse's blood pressure without a cuff.

xx

At 11:45 Pritchard leads the group back into the drawing room and closes the door behind them. "It's almost midnight and I've only had time to introduce you to a few of the dangers of this house. There are some areas so dangerous that if you intrude into them the ghosts will surely take you and you will be lost forever. They are–" The doors behind him fly apart, bang against walls. A blast of thunder splits the air, riding a shrill chorus of shrieks.

In the doorway, illuminated for an instant by a flash of lightning before being darkened to obscurity, two gaunt figures stand. The tall man is little more than stretched skin on thin bones, the shorter woman is a haggard crone whose white hair reaches out in insane directions. The doors close on their own and the Vincent Price simulacrum, standing at the black table, comes to life.

x

"Good evening. I'm your host, Frederick Loren." Several guests who had stood near him are doubly startled and hurry away from the moving robot.

They're amazed. Price moves just as the original had; his face changes expression, eyes move, all in lifelike similarity to the real man. He speaks, rather than his voice coming from a concealed electronic device.

It's only too late that some realize the more practical explanation is the real one. The speaker is concealed in the simulacrum's mouth.

x

"Now before the party begins, let's go over the details," Price, as Loren, tells them. "The Caretakers will leave at midnight, locking us in here until they come back in the morning. Once the door is locked there's no way out. The windows have bars a jail would be proud of, and the only door to the outside locks like a vault. There's no electricity ... no phone ... no one within miles, so _no _way to call for help." He manages to make the simple words sound dreadfully ominous.

"So if any of you decide not to stay for the party you must let me know before midnight. Of course, if you leave, I shan't be able to pay you anything." The smile is chilling.

"I think you all remember the bargain we made about staying all night: $10,000 a piece. If any of you don't survive, $50,000 will be divided amongst the rest of you. If I should die," his smile turns ironic, though he doesn't cast a sidelong glance at his wife Annabelle as the real Price had done, "you will be paid by my Estate."

Several people start to move closer, try to discern the workings of the device. Pritchard prevents them from going around the table or touching him.

x

"When the door is locked from the outside by the Caretakers," Price continues, "we'll all be forced to stay in the house until morning. If any of you decide not to stay you must leave with the Caretakers now. You won't have a chance to change your minds later, because there'll be no way to get out."

There are no takers. They know the famous - or infamous - terms and no one wants to leave.

x

Rushing wind blows the living room doors back open and the heavy breeze from previously unnoticed vents distracts all but the most wary as the crystal chandelier in the foyer tinkles. While the others are distracted, even those who allow themselves to be so, the outer door slams. The striped Prisoner and Superman cross the foyer to the outer door. Moments later, Superman steps back into the room. "It's locked."

"I was going to ask you if you wanted to leave or not," Price, still in the character of Frederick Loren, continues, seemingly unfazed by the news, "but it seems the Caretakers have made the decision for you. We're all locked in now. We will all have to stay in this house until 8:00 in the morning.

"But we have some party favors for you, in these little coffins."

'Loren' reaches for the first of the black coffins arrayed on the table before him, opens each in turn to reveal deadly black pistols. "This is my wife's idea. I must say I think it's rather dangerous.

"I suppose you all know how to use one of these things," he says as he draws one out of a coffin, "but in case you don't, you just press down on this lever with your thumb," he cocks the hammer back, "and then," he aims at a cobweb covered black vase across the room, "pull the trigger."

The loud bang almost drowns out the shattering vase. Elvira, Wanda and Vampirella note there's a corresponding bullet hole in the wall beyond, though none of the cloud of dust nor the tiny debris that would accompany a real gunshot.

Wanda won't tell anyone that she'd already sought for and found the hole during her first moments in the room earlier tonight.

"You see, they're loaded."

The robot puts the gun back into the coffin, turns to its right and stops.

x

"Is it going to say anything else?" Dr. Who wonders as he approaches the motionless Price. The smile upon the simulacrum's lips is not reassuring.

"I think it's off," the Cowboy confirms.

"Who's for pictures?" Who asks as, with a flourish, he produces a digital camera from one of his copious pockets.

"_Me_," Supergirl exclaims, being the first to reach Price's side. She strikes a slinky rather than Superheroinish pose. Superman and several others take her picture.

"Me next," Barbarella exclaims as she takes Supergirl's place, but then she hesitates.

Captain Jack Sparrow discerns her dilemma. "Dear lady, only provide me with your e-mail address and I will see you obtain a sumptuous collection."

"_Okay_."

Though careful not to touch the android, mindful of Pritchard's earlier direction, she strikes a pose suitably scandalous for her character. As the room is turned into a cosmic storm of flashes, Vampirella observes sotto vocé to Wanda Maximoff: "That's not all he'll give her once he gets her e-mail address."

"She's a big girl."

"That said," Vampi agrees, noting Barbarella's décolletage.

"Annabelle, do you want a picture with your husband?" Jack offers.

"The only picture I want of him is a mug shot," she replies coolly. "He murdered me, remember?"

"Oh, yeah."

"You look good for a corpse," the white smocked Doctor assures her. Elvira notices the nurse beside him is not amused. Wanda predicts a new client for Ducky Mallard.

Annabelle does pose for a picture, but when the Doctor moves in a moment later, she holds up her hand. "I've sworn off doctors after the last time."

He takes her rebuff with good grace under a chorus of chuckles. Not many notice that his nurse doesn't join in the merriment.

x

"How about it?" Wanda asks Vampirella.

The petite woman shakes her head. "I had enough pictures taken the other day by that 'We' magazine photographer." Her normally straight hair is still styled with a wave she'd adopted for that photo session. "He must've taken about twenty shots until he had what he wanted."

"Me too."

Vampirella remembers her friend's image from that day. Abby had outdone herself. In answer to Shepherd's directive about professional appearance of all the women on interview day, she'd worn a daringly low cut Victorian dress - black, of course - that would've given the Director nightmares had she seen it. "He must've used a roll of film on you," she quips.

"What roll? Digital."

Vampi will not flush at the mistake; she doesn't want the joke to fall flat. "Then an entire flash drive."

"More like flesh drive."

Vampirella smiles, recalling her own session.

Actually in photographing Abby the man had shown professionalism and admirable restraint. He'd confined his views of the Goth woman to her neck upward. If he'd kept one or two for a private collection, she won't say anything.

x

"Come on, get up there." The push Wanda gives Vampirella makes her stumble on high leather boots into the center. Trapped in the open, she goes to Vincent as graciously as she can.

For all the generosity of her costume, actually because of it, she strikes a pose considerably more demure than many of her predecessors. Wanda uses Vampirella's camera as well as her own to capture the moment; certain that, though not provocative, Jimmy will enjoy the views.

Vampirella gives the e-mail address Jack Sparrow should send the pictures to as Jimmy's, emphasizing _James_. Sparrow doesn't blink an eye; he's already collecting a bumper crop of addresses.

Wanda leans back toward Price, not touching him but tilting her head to expose her neck to his attack.

"He's not a vampire in this movie," the striped Inmate reminds her.

"Vincent can put his mouth anywhere he wants," she coos.

x

Elvira, her back to the robot, strikes a pose much more restrained than her fictional counterpart, very cautious of her own décolletage.

"Come on," Wanda protests. "That's not an Elvira pose."

The Mistress of the Dark reaches up, her hand draped sensuously about Vincent's neck and feels the tape securing the dress give way. She ducks and hurries aside, escapes before more than one bright flash can light the room.

"Did you get it?" Wanda asks Vampirella as Elvira presses the tape firmly into place.

"_Got it_," Vampirella announces, showing Wanda the little screen, not letting others see.

"Gibbs'll _love _that."

"Michelle, don't you dare, that's an order."

"You mean I can't barter this into a _t__hree_week vacation?"

"No you can _not_."

"Missed it anyway," Vampirella admits with a faux pout as she turns the device around. Elvira had gotten out of the frame before the button had been pushed. "I was just playing."

"You mean you couldn't film 'Elvira's Haunted Hills'?" Wanda quips.

"Oh, _blech_."

The Scarlet Witch shrugs. "Breast I could do."

"Well," Elvira cools down, managing to smile and accept having been momentarily had, "Gibbs has seen better anyway."

"Do tell," Wanda urges as the revelers, no longer interested in the drama, resume taking pictures with Vincent.

"I could, but you know what I'd have to do."

"Nothing compared to what you'd have to do with Gibbs," Wanda smirks.

x

Pritchard resumes the tour, starts the group up the staircase from the foyer to the second floor. Only Sparrow and Cleopatra delay. "Quite a piece of work," Sparrow says.

"Yes," Cleo agrees, looking the robot over.

"Want another?" he asks, hefting the camera.

"That's not necessary." She's confident she'll remember the night without it. The chandelier, the blood marking, they had been more than enough.

"Come on, it's Opening Night." He glances toward where the departing group had gone. "Running out of time."

"Well..." she considers, "why not?" She adopts a seductive pose, her back against Vincent. She raises her left hand as though to stroke his face, her chest thrust outward. "You can have my _boyfriend's_ e-mail."

xx

As the party passes an antique suit of armor, most of the guests suspicious and passing in a wide arc closer to the left wall, an unseen panel opens and a hand grabs Barbarella's bare thigh. She shrieks, but by the time anyone looks the wall has reclosed.

They turn a corner and the lights in the wall sconces dim. Before them appears an etherial woman, flesh and rags decaying from her gaunt body. She runs at them, human and ghostly shrieks mingle before she reaches them and vanishes.

They ascend a creaking staircase, but when they reach the next landing the creaking footsteps continue. Several look back, haunted by their invisible pursuer and a blast of thunder splits the group in all directions.

They pass down a hallway when all lights suddenly go out and lightning splits the darkness, thunder rocks the house as doors around them burst open singly and in pairs, the lightning mingling with ghostly laughter and human shrieks. All the doors slam shut in unison and the sconces reignite.

x

In the Study, not far from the chapel they'd visited earlier in this fragmented, intentionally disorganized tour, Pritchard points out scores of books on Black Magic used by a man who had sacrificed his girlfriend to the Devil.

Vampirella looks at the book set on a pedestal, which Pritchard has identified as a 'Book of Shadows'. She turns a few ancient, yellow pages, recognizing several of the 'spells' as having been lifted directly from episodes of 'Charmed' and from several horror movies. She stops at one and giggles.

"What's up?" Wanda asks, stepping beside her.

"'To Find True Love' it says, but it says to use 'root of a carrot'. That's not it at all. Lemon, orange or strawberry incense works far bet–" Glancing up, she sees this is far from a private conversation. She steps away from the book, self-conscious but unable to let it rest. "Well, anyway, it's wrong."

"How would you know, Vampi?" the Cowboy asks and points to Wanda. "_She's _the witch."

"The hex she is." She touches the starred circle and cross charm that hangs between her breasts.

"What would you suggest?" Superman asks as puts his arm around Supergirl.

She pushes him off. "Is there a spell in there so he _won't _be the man of steel at three in the morning?" she asks longingly, garnering a laugh from everyone.

Every candle in the room goes out.

The darkness is cleaved by a bolt of lightning as a storm rises and heavy rain pelts the window glass. The candles are gradually relit, but not before several hearts have been raised into throats.

The distraction saves Vampirella the need to evade the fact that there _is _a way to grant Supergirl's wish - though she can't imagine ever wanting to use it.

Most of her private efforts, even to using this costume, are intended for the opposite effect.

x

The tour of the musty building continues. Despite knowing that the entire structure was only begun two years ago, the dust, cobwebs and mustiness continues to insist this place has been shut up since the 50's.

They make their way down another hallway, Pritchard's words occasionally drowned out by blasts of thunder when, from the other end steps a figure in a long black robe. His face under the hood is a grinning skull and he hefts a large silver scythe and charges them, shrieking maniacally. The crowd scatters to the walls. Death swings the scythe at Captain Jack Sparrow, misses by an inch and disappears into a cloud of smoke that rose unobserved to fill the hall behind them.

"Captain, are you all right?" Pritchard asks, coming back to the terrified man.

"_All Right_?" Sparrow exclaims, his voice two octaves too high, his chest heaving. "What do you mean ALL RIGHT? That thing almost _killed _me, Pritchard; that fucking scythe was _real_! You're supposed to scare us, not fucking KILL us!"

"My dear Captain, I'm terribly sorry–"

He pushes him off. "Look, don't give me 'sorry'; just make sure it doesn't happen _again_."

He breaks from Pritchard and stalks angrily back through the dissipating smoke.

x

Pritchard stands shaken for a moment, then turns to the rest of the group. Most can see him work to regain his composure - and his persona.

"The ghosts are angry tonight - and more dangerous than I'd thought. We must all be cautious ... or there could be more ghosts before the night ends. Come."

He resumes the tour. Though the group follows him down the hall, Elvira, Wanda and Vampirella linger. "That was real," Vampirella declares.

"Looked like it to me," Wanda admits.

Vampirella shakes her head. "I grew up around edged weapons. That was real."

No one contradicts her.

"Watch yourselves," Elvira advises. "This fantasy is starting to look a bit too real."

They follow the group.


	5. You Have No Idea

Chapter Five  
You have no idea

"These are your rooms," Pritchard announces when all the guests except Captain Jack Sparrow have regrouped about a hundred yards further on. The grey hall is lined on both sides with doors, more of them than Wanda Maximov remembers, though enough to accommodate the costumed guests.

Pritchard opens the first door. "Batman and Batgirl, this is your room. I hope you'll find it comfortable." The group looks in on the dust and cobweb laden antique furnishings. "Your luggage has already been stored."

"Thank you," the bat duo says, Batgirl somewhat dubiously as they enter the dusty museum and the group moves on. Wanda, near the back, doubts anyone will get much rest tonight. She doesn't intend to waste a minute asleep in her own to-be-assigned room.

In turn each pair or trio is led to their rooms. When Wanda sees the room assigned to her and her friends she lets out a squeal of glee, jumps about so much her billowing scarlet cape bobs wildly.

"Guys, do you know what this is?"

"Our room?" Elvira ventures.

"This is _Nora Manning's_ room. Right on that bed, in that - well, in my travel case now - she found the sister's bloody severed head. Through that open window," she points to the barred - and fortunately glassed - portal, beyond which the storm rages, "came the rope that tied her up when she saw–"

"Thank you," Elvira says to Pritchard, who watches from the door, "this will do fine."

"I hope you'll be comfortable," he says, barely able to contain a smile as Wanda continues to circle the room, pointing out to Vampirella the myriad nightmare highlights. Elvira closes the door and turns, decides not to even try to rein in the ecstatic woman.

What she sees is a century-and-a-half old room with a large dusty bed she won't be getting onto. To the right of the door, and right of the barred windows across the room, are gas sconces that provide not quite enough light. She'll see if they turn up higher.

To her right is a bureau with a large mirror. Set on the dusty bureau are two candlesticks bearing tall, apparently just-lit candles. She suspects someone has prepared the rooms while they were being led on their circuitous tour.

The mirror helps to increase the light, though Jennifer wishes for more. Also upon the bureau is a white pitcher and basin set she isn't sure she trusts enough to use. 'Probably pours blood,' she thinks, unable to erase from her mind the chilling scene from 'The Ten Commandments': Pharaoh Yul Brenner had tried to purify the Nile waters cursed by Moses Charlton Heston, only to have the pitcher water start out clear and turn to blood in mid-pour.

On the table beside the foot of the antique bed is another silver candlestick. She brings it to the mirrored bureau, lights the tall candle and returns it to the table. Now, with the two gaslights and three candles there's a decent amount of light, though she'd prefer three hundred-watt bulbs and could do without the intermittent flashes of lightning bursting in through the high windows.

There are two doors on the right wall. She steps over and opens the first.

"Oh, excuse me." She shuts it.

"What?" Wanda asks with high innocence.

"Dracula and Frankenstein's bride." She glares at Wanda, knows the smiling woman knew she was going to intrude on the neighbors and hadn't warned her.

She also notices Vampirella's sour expression at the mention of Dracula, recalls what the younger woman had said about his obvious attentions. It's not _blood_lust that the petite woman has to concern herself with from the vampire king. 'Serves you right for wearing the sex-kitten costume,' she thinks.

She opens the door in the right corner next to the mirrored bureau with greater caution. This one actually is the empty closet, though she wishes the discovery didn't have to be punctuated by another flash and explosion of thunder.

She closes the door. "Home sweet haunted home."

"Yeah, isn't it great?" Wanda enthuses.

"I'm scheduling you for therapy when we get in on Monday." Still, for all her faux exasperation, she can't deny the night has been an interesting diversion. She wonders if Captain Jack has gotten over his brush with Death.

x

"Well," Wanda announces, "I'm not staying in all night. I'm going out to get my panties scared off. How about you, Vampi?"

"I'm not wearing panties," she counters, waving her hand over her very skimpy costume.

"I've noticed."

"Everyone's noticed," Elvira reminds her.

"I know Dracula has, he's been _staring _at me all evening."

"I bet Elsa Lanchester will have something to say about that." Wanda catches Elvira's look. "Hey, not my fault. It's not like they actually gave her a _name_. Just 'the Bride'."

"Sort of like Uma Thurman in 'Kill Bill'," Vampirella observes.

"At least we don't have one of them," Elvira says.

"We do have our own O-Ren Ishii," Wanda counters.

"Hey, I'm _way _prettier," Vampirella says, "and I have fangs, not a samurai sword."

"I don't want you near any swords," Elvira says, "not after I heard about that knife throwing incident." Ziva had tried to teach her team how to handle throwing knives. Michelle had nearly turned the Deputy SAIC into a Gibbs-kabob.

"Well, anyway," Wanda urges, "who's for exploring?" Pritchard had said there were many places he hadn't shown them. He'd also said they were too dangerous to explore, making them the very things Wanda is guaranteed to seek out.

"I think I'll stay and rest for a bit," Vampirella decides. "I forgot when I said 'yes' that this costume doesn't belong outside of a bedroom."

"Suit yourself. Coming, Elvira?"

"Why not?"

x

When the women leave, Vampirella goes to her travel bag set upon the bed, but hesitates before she opens it. The last time such a case was opened in 'this' room, it had contained a bloody severed head. 'Then again,' she reminds herself, 'I've seen worse at work.'

Still, when she does lift the lid, she's relieved to find only what she'd packed. Searching through the various items, she pulls out her small red MP3 player and earphones. 'Abby said no cell phone; she didn't say a _word _about music.' She sets the case on the floor.

Seeing how dusty the comforter covering the bed is, she pulls it down and recoils, almost dropping the player.

The man's decomposing, maggot riddled body has sunk deep into the mattress. Her first automatic evaluation - NCIS at work - puts the decomposition in a temperature controlled room at low humidity at seven months. Fortunately, the horror _isn't _accompanied by a corresponding stink. She covers the corpse.

"Not bad," she says to air she hopes is empty, "but if you really want to scare me you'll have to–" The woman's shriek that comes from under the bed makes her jump back with a scream of her own. She clutches her heaving chest, her heart thumping against her hand.

"Better," she gasps and tries to slow her breath.

x

The two candles on the mirrored bureau next to the door go out in a puff. Michelle turns to the window as a bright flash of lightning carries its booming report.

The flame in the sconce beside the barred window to her right goes down, out. She turns to the door in time to see the other flame lower. This time she can watch the dial turn before the flame vanishes.

"Oh no, please," she says in a little girl sing-song, "I'm scared of the dark."

Only the single tiny flame from the candle on the table lights the room. The dim light casts deep shadows through the room.

'I shouldn't be a smart-ass,' she admonishes herself. 'Not their fault we see worse at wor–'

A deep male chuckling pulls her attention to the large mirror over the bureau. She carries the last remaining light to the mirror, but before she can relight either candle she sees her image in the glass begin to change.

The laughter grows more intense as lines crease a face no longer smooth. Long wavy black hair lightens, turns grey and frazzled. Her body sags and thins until her bones show. Her breasts deflate under a costume that decays to rags. As Michelle watches, her eyes wither to beads and gray skin sloughs off her face. She screams, turns away and hides her face so her unseen tormentor can't see her giggling.

When she can trust herself to look at the mirror again, her normal reflection is restored. 'I shouldn't laugh,' she chides herself, 'but when you've seen 'Morph Pro' age suspects and missing persons, it kind of takes the mystery out. And the mirror ...' she examines it more closely with the candle, 'is probably backed with an LCD–'

The door behind her opens slowly on the whine of protesting hinges.

Vampirella sets the candlestick down where its puny light can be doubled. 'Twice nothing is still nothing.' A flash of lightning almost blinds her but shows the tuxedoed and caped Dracula entering. He closes the door with a grating squeak.

x

The door clicks shut as her eyes readjust to the dimness. She backs away, doesn't want to be cornered by the bureau but neither does she try to leave. 'Okay, Drak's a ringer. He's working with Pritchard,' she decides. He can't _possibly _have in mind what she reads in his shadowed eyes.

His black on black presence is augmented by a white shirt and bloodless face. White gloves complete the ghastly image that has already grown too familiar to her.

"Vampires can't enter without being invited," she reminds the intruder, wonders why she's singled out for personal treatment as she works her way around to where she has more room. "An advantage of being king," he assures her in sepulchral tones. He steps closer to the door as though to cut off her escape. "As a fellow vampire, we should get acquainted."

She's felt his eyes petting her all night; that's acquaintance enough, even if the entertainment _is _free. "As I recall," she counters as she drops a step back toward the window, "Vampirella and Dracula do _not _get along, something about them both being from the same planet but him serving Chaos."

"Long in the past, a lifetime ago." He steps closer. She steps back. He's not acting like Pritchard. Is he a ringer? Has she thought - and trusted - too soon?

The candle's behind him now, his already dim features in shadow. His eyes aren't on hers, they're on the widest gap of her costume. He takes another step, she backs away to the window, realizes too late she should've gone for the hall door. She's not afraid - she's sparred with Ziva - but if he gets much closer...

"Hey, _personal space_, Drak." He comes closer still, she backs into the corner by the window. This is a bit too realistic. The candlelight is blocked by his voluminous black cape and she's trapped in his shadow. She steps forward, no longer playing any 'helpless victim'

"Okay, playtime's over. _Back off_."

x

He steps closer, his larger body forces her back deeper into the corner. Now she's starting to feel afraid. She tries for a brave front; size doesn't faze her but he's close to Jimmy's height and doesn't smell nearly as good. "Okay, no more. Believe me, I'm _no one_ you want to mess with."

"Let me guess; your husband'll cut me up."

"Oh, you have _no_ idea."

He steps closer still. This isn't acting, and he's no _ringer_.

She fights her growing fear. He _can't _be thinking of doing what he's acting - this _has _to be part of the act - like he wants to do. This is no fun. She tries to keep her voice confident. "I'll give you one last chance. Back off, go back to your room and I'll forget all about this."

'He _can't _be for real. He's going to _molest _me in a crowded, locked house? Yeah, _right_.'

He crowds her into the corner, his body against hers. She can feel his stiff bulge pressed against her abdomen. She prepares her most devastating spell, one she hasn't used in years.

"Last chance. Do _not _make me do this." She glances down, draws his attention to the silver pentacle / cross pendant suspended between her breasts. A flash of lightning makes the silver charm glint, the thunder accents the moment. She knows Dracula's looked at that spot a lot, but doubts he's seen the pendant before now.

"So instead of a vampire, now you're a Charmed one? Fine with me, I always liked Phoebe; she had the best boobs."

"That's it! You _asked_–" He grabs her wrists, forces them together in his left hand, slams her arms up to the wall over her head as a blast of thunder nearly deafens her. His mouth covers hers faster than she'd been prepared to counter.

She hadn't believed he'd do it.

x

He mashes her lips with his, his teeth hurt her. His body pins her tightly into the corner. She can't escape. Horror leaps through her. His gloved right hand yanks her costume band aside, he grabs her left breast tightly. She screams, her cry smothered in his mouth.

Pain shatters her focus. She can't cast the spell. _Now _she's afraid - unable to drive him off. His hand holding her arms over her head is so strong she can't pull out of his grip.

He squeezes her breast - _hurts _her - his body pins her harder into the corner as his hand crushes her breast and his mouth mashes hers, smothering her cries. She kicks at him, but can't get enough space to fight. She bites at his lips.

His grip on her wrists is too powerful, leverage is on his side, she can't break free. His hand leaves her brutalized breast, slips down. She panics when he yanks her crotch aside. His gloved fingers are dry at her lips. She can't focus a spell. Her scream can't get past his mouth.

xx

"Maybe she changed her mind," Wanda says to Elvira as she pushes open the bedroom door, surprised at the dimness of the room. They're barely in the room when a muffled scream yanks their attention to the far right corner.

In the flash of lightning they see a black cape moving in frantic struggle, one gloved hand holds two bare arms high against the wall.

"_**HEY**_." Jennifer Shepherd's yell slices through the dark room like a sword.

x

Vampirella yanks free from the startled monster and slaps her hands hard into Dracula's ears. He pulls away from her mouth, falls back a step, his cry as agonized as hers had been. Vampirella points her fingers, stabs the tips into the hollow of his throat, slices the monster's cry. He crashes to his knees, gags for breath.

Elvira and Wanda are appalled as Vampirella tugs the strap of her costume back into place and restores the crotch of her monokini. Then she bends over and clutches the gagging vampire by his cape's collar, strangles him with the ties. He can't release his nearly ruptured ears.

Her red face within an inch of his white one, she shouts: "You _look _at me again and it won't be your _heart_ I'll stake." She shoves him back off his knees, far enough so when he falls she can get a full swing to her kick. A blast of thunder punctuates the impact.

Elvira winces at the force. Wanda's impressed Dracula can hit so piercing a note with an impacted esophagus.

Vampirella stalks past her friends and slams the door behind her hard enough for the vibration to be felt throughout the house. Dracula writhes upon the floor, undoubtedly wishing for true death.

x

Wanda and Elvira each grab under the deposed vampire king's arms - 'the king is dead, long live the queen' Wanda thinks - and haul him to the door.

"You're lucky she's in a _good _mood," Elvira counsels as she opens the door.

They hurtle the groaning vampire so hard his head dents the far wall. They leave the unmoving bundle under his rumpled cape and look up and down the vacant hall.

"You go that way," Elvira directs Wanda right. She turns left and heads up the corridor.

xx

It's at the head of the main staircase leading down to the foyer that Wanda finds her trembling friend. The vampiress has her hand pressed to her mouth to cover silent sobs. Wanda's surprised. In all the life-and-death dramas they encounter almost daily in NCIS, she's never known her friend to cry. She's even more surprised that the witch didn't get so mad as to use a devastating spell on her tormentor. _She_ would – if she knew any. Perhaps it's that Michelle's not _allowed_ to that devastates her so. Either way, whatever happened has really broken her.

"Michelle?" she calls, cautious of approaching until she's sure the shattered woman knows who's behind her.

When Wanda comes up beside the smaller woman, Vampirella is pale and trembling so violently Wanda's glad to find her before she'd tried to descend the stairs.

"They hurt - me so - _much_," the woman gasps through her muffling hand, surprising Wanda even more deeply. She knows of only one attacker.

x

"Who?"

"Wh -" she sobs three names into her hand. Wanda can't understand her.

She decides she doesn't have to understand. She takes her trembling friend in her arms, enfolds her within her scarlet cape, hugs her and just lets her cry.

"Who hurt you?" Wanda whispers when the sobs begin to quiet.

"Whitney … Kimmel … Sullivan. When they ... kidnapped ... Tim? Captured ... me? Re - remember?"

Wanda remembers those horrible days. McGee had survived horrific tortures; whipped, beaten, burned with a cattle rod and he'd been in recovery for weeks. Michelle had said only that she'd been held, but that nothing happened to her because the spies had been trying to break McGee.

Abby had never believed it.

x

"They raped you?" she whispers. She feels Vampirella's sharp nod, can't see the crying woman's face buried against her chest and hidden within her cloak. She doesn't want to ask. "How many times?"

"Se - seven. I - kept - fainting. And that - that _bitch _- Klein - she _burned _- me - with a - cattle - prod - on my ..."

"Oh God, honey." Vampirella's weeping grows more intense. Wanda waits it out before she whispers; "Does Jimmy know?" She doubts it. She thinks she knows what would've happened if he did.

"_No_." She feels the smaller woman stiffen urgently. "Don't tell him. _Please _don't tell him."

"I won't."

"Please don't tell him. Don't _ever _tell him."

"I won't."

Vampirella looks up, her head emerging from the scarlet folds of the voluminous cloak, her tear-drenched face filled with misery. "I told everyone they only hurt Tim. Made him swear not to tell what they did to me. You can't tell anyone. Please! You can't tell _anyone_!"

"But why? Why would you–?"

"Jimmy had to kill George Franklin. Remember?"

Abby can never forget. To prevent Franklin from murdering the apprentice witch Megan Wood in her hospital bed, Jimmy had had to shoot him. He'd wanted to wound him, to stop him.

He'd killed him.

x

"Jimmy - went through hell. He was - just then - recovering. I _couldn't _let him - know - what they did - to me."

"But Michelle, that was months ago. He needs to know you need h–"

"_NO_. You can't _tell _him. Please. Please Abby, you can't tell _anyone_!"

x

"I promise," she says, certain she's making a terrible mistake.

"You have to _swear _you won–"

"Michelle, I won't tell anyone _on one condition_."

Misery turns to surprise that the taller woman would impose any condition. "What?"

"You and I have to talk." She won't answer. "Michelle, we _have _to talk."

Wanda can see her friend is trying to answer; it dissolves into a torrent of sobs as Vampirella buries her face back against her scarlet covered chest. She just holds her, hand to the back of her head, doesn't say another word.

It's in this tableau that Elvira, coming up the stairs, finds them.

x

"Listen," Wanda says for Elvira's benefit, with a burst of good humor she doesn't feel, "I say we should forget that stupid jerk - he's not worth it. They'll probably to have to cart him away. Let's not let him ruin our fun, okay?"

Vampirella rubs her eyes, tries to put on a mask. "Okay." She fools no one with her empty smile. "What do you have in mind?"

"Well, what _I _really want to do is go back to that chapel."

"Let me guess," Vampirella can say this with a more realistic smile, helped out of her misery by the mental image. "You want a picture of yourself in that coffin."

"Yes, please."

"As the Scarlet Witch."

"Well ... it wasn't my first choice but ... yes." She turns to Elvira. "You mind?"

"No." Elvira is in favor of anything that will recapture the party spirit from a jerk who tried to rob it from Michelle, and that will distract her friend from her troubles. Michelle may have handled the assault handily, but she hadn't deserved it. If there's anything that can put the incident out of Vampirella's mind, Elvira's in favor of it.

She'll ask, later, if her friend wants to prosecute, though she suspects she'll find out without having to ask.

Unlike Abby, the infamous 'Mysterious of the Dark', Jennifer has never believed in Michelle's alleged powers. Witchcraft has never been proven to be scientifically testable or quantifiable, for which reason Jennifer is frequently surprised by Abby's belief. But if there _is _something behind it, then Jennifer suspects it would be a very good idea for the misogynist vampire imbecile to plead guilty.

"We'll go ba–" Vampirella stops, unable to think of going back to that room for their cameras if it means she might see Dracula.

"_I'll _go get them," Elvira covers, recognizing the smaller woman's convulsive halt. "I'll be right back."

xx

Elvira returns two minutes later, having found the hallway outside their assigned room empty. She'd encountered Frankenstein's Bride, who came from the next room but had exchanged little more than pleasant, empty greetings. Elvira anticipates more screams later that aren't in their hosts' scripts.

She, Wanda and Vampirella make their way, accompanied by little more than the sounds of the thunderstorm and a few ghostly rattles, clanks and moans, to the Chapel.

Stepping into the shadowed Gothic chamber, they approach the coffin through the rows of prei dieus. But while still six feet away, they get an unpleasant surprise; someone has beaten Wanda to it.

Cleopatra sleeps on the purple velvet, her head upon the thin pillow.

"Come _on_," Wanda is disappointed and annoyed by the unpleasant surprise.

"Who can sleep on a night like this?" Vampirella wonders quietly, not wanting to wake the woman. A blast of thunder, however, seems determined to do its best to disturb the Nile Queen's repose.

"That's not really fair," Wanda grouses. She turns to Vampirella. "Do you think she'll move if I ask really nicely?"

Elvira steps closer, close enough. Frowning, she takes Cleopatra's cool wrist, then reaches for the woman's neck, her fingers questing to confirm what her eyes had discerned. She turns to her friends.

"I doubt it."


	6. Aliases

Chapter Six  
Aliases

Jennifer Shepherd, Abby Sciuto and Michelle Palmer make a careful inspection of Cleopatra's cool body which lies so conveniently in the chapel's mahogany coffin. Michelle, camera already in hand in anticipation of souvenir photos of Abby in the purple velvet-lined prop, begins to take pictures.

The reason for Cleopatra's lamentable condition is quickly discovered when Jennifer tilts the still woman's head, looking for wounds. It moves far too easily. "Her neck is broken."

"No defensive wounds," Abby reports as she looks at Cleopatra's hands without touching them. "No bruising that I can find."

"It takes a lot to break someone's neck," Jennifer notes.

"Gibbs makes it look easy, but it's not. I know," Abby declares. "I tried it on my landlord."

Jennifer turns to her, uncertain where the woman is going with this but knowing she doesn't want to follow.

"Nothing apparent under her nails," Abby reports instead, not caring if she's managed to fluster Shepherd. Closer examination will determine if there's anything to find under those nails or anywhere else.

She obeys Michelle's signal to back off as the petite woman continues to photograph the body, circling the coffin to document the corpse's condition from every angle.

"No rigor, of course," Jennifer says as she too checks the dead woman's fingers. It's far too soon. They've barely been in the house long enough in total for rigor to commence at the fingers and toes. The cadaveric spasm Abby had discoursed on earlier isn't present either.

Shepherd pushes up the sleeve on her black Elvira costume, checks her watch. It's almost one-thirty. They've been locked in since midnight and at that hour Cleopatra was with them in the drawing room.

"Her body's still warm," Jennifer says. The woman in the Egyptian Queen costume can't have been dead much longer than an hour.

She doesn't bother to ask if either of her partners had considered packing a liver probe thermometer for the party. However: "Do you have any gloves?"

Michelle shakes her head.

"I do, in my bag," Abby reports. At Michelle's glance she says: "Never leave home without them."

"Why does that make me nervous?" Jennifer mutters, but she turns instead to Michelle. "Find 'Watson Pritchard' and bring him back here." She looks down at the still body of Cleopatra. "The party's over."

x

While Michelle hunts Pritchard, Jennifer sends Abby back to their room for her gloves. The scientist returns and each woman dons a set of latex coverings.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Jennifer asks.

"I haven't paid attention. During the tour. I think she was in the kitchen. Or was it the den with the Book of Shadows? I really didn't pay attention. She was just one of the crowd."

"Neither did I. What can we learn about the body?" They stand before the open casket. "No apparent tearing of the costume," she continues in answer to her own question. "Perhaps she was caught off guard?"

"Hard and fast?" Abby speculates.

"That's the way Gibbs likes it."

"Me too," Abby says with a smile.

Jennifer glares at her, decides it's a waste of time to try to reprimand her. It will only goad the irrepressible scientist. "Can't see any bruises yet."

Thunder continues to batter through the walls, and neither of them is sure it's a real storm or perhaps one concocted by their mysterious host.

As if in answer, the door behind them opens and Michelle tugs a mystified Watson Pritchard into the room.

x

"What's going on?" he demands, seeing Elvira and Wanda at the coffin. "Your friend here tells me she's a Federal Agent and–"

He stops dead when he sees Cleopatra in the coffin. Even under his 'black and white' makeup the agents see the blood drain from his face. He rushes to the coffin but doesn't try to touch the motionless woman. "Oh, my God," he whispers, "Carly!" His breathing is heavy but his voice is hushed as he turns to Elvira. "Is she …?"

"Dead? Yes," Elvira's bluntness defies her faux persona. Pritchard clutches his chest, his breath coming too fast.

"I need to know what happened here," Shepherd says, using the whipsnap of her voice to get control of him so that he may regain control of himself. "You called her 'Carly'. I take it you know her well?"

"Yes," he gasps, "she - I - we - that is - ah..."

x

"Let's start with her name." Jennifer's voice is professional and firm, far different from the 'real' Elvira's throaty sensuality.

"Car - Carly Simon."

"I mean her _name_." She's had enough of aliases for one night.

"That is–"

He struggles to recover, turns from the still body, fights to get his breath under control, probably realizes what a poor showing he's making. "That is her name," he says clearly, distinctly. "Carly Simon. Well, Carla, maybe even 'Carlotta', but she doesn't - didn't - use that. To us - to us she's always been 'Carly'." He shakes his head hard.

They can see he's gone from shock to fighting grief, and it's a war he's barely managing to uphold.

"What happened?" he demands, unable to believe he's being interrogated by Elvirathe Scarlet Witch and Vampirella. Who _are _you people?"

"I'm Jennifer Shepherd, Director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service." She wishes she had her shield - if she had anywhere to put the thin ID case in this damned costume. "This is Special Agent Michelle Palmer and Forensic Scientist Abigail Sciuto. And you are?"

"H - Harry Houdini." He sees the last of Elvira's - Shepherd's - patience fry. "No, that really is my name. No relation. Well, maybe a fifty-sixth cousin thirty times removed but my name _is _Harold Houdini."

"You _own _this place," Abby realizes. She turns to the others. "The papers said 'Harry Houdini' won the gazillion dollars in that lottery. I just figured it was a ploy to keep the winner anonymous. That was the name on my winning e-mail."

"That's my name."

Shepherd has had enough. "And how does Simon fit into this?" The answer suggests itself to them even before Houdini can answer. The solo arrival when her 'boyfriend' got sick, her stepping under the chandelier and standing in the precise spot for her hand to be marked with blood from the ceiling…. The pirate Sparrow had helped her both times. "Is 'Jack Sparrow' in on this?"

"Yeah," Harry nods sharply, seemingly back in control. Grief is there, as is shock, but he's coping better. "Matt Nicholas is his name. There was Carly; then there's Pete Pascone, Linda Hayes, Bill Murphy - he was 'Death' with the scythe, by the way - and Paula Comisky's in the control room."

"I figured 'Death' and 'Jack Sparrow' were in on it," Abby declares. "That scythe came _way _too close, and his tantrum was a bit over the top."

"I _asked_him to work on that," Pritchard / Houdini admits. "They rehearsed it a hundred times, we needed to get it just right."

x

Michelle steps in front of him, the vampiress' eyes ablaze. For her that list of names leaves one unaccounted for. "_Tell_ me Pascone isn't _Dracula_."

Her fire sears; Houdini takes a step back from the heat. "Why?"

"Because after I was 'morph-proed' into old Vampi, he came into my room and tried to _rape_ me!"

Houdini's face pales again under his 'black and white' makeup. He looks to Elvira and Wanda, seeking denial. He doesn't get it.

"_Shit_. No. I'm sorry you–. This is all coming apart. No, Pete and Lin were Jonas and Minerva Slaggs, the Caretakers. Then they handle the physical effects; trap doors, hidden passages and so forth. They light the candles just before we get there, that sort of thing. They don't interact with the guests; that's Matt, Carly and I."

"Okay then," she says in a voice of iron, dismissing nothing.

Houdini, trembling, won't risk asking if she's going to press charges, or going to sue him as host. His grand plans are collapsing around him on Opening Night.

He goes past the head of the coffin, pushes aside a black curtain and reveals a metal grill with a red button beneath. He presses it. "P–Paula?"

A few seconds later a woman's voice answers with impressive clarity. "Go ahead."

"It's ..." He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out slowly and his voice sounds almost normal. "It's Harry in the Chapel. We ... have a problem. Get Matt over here."

"Okay."

Houdini turns to the women. "It could be a few minutes."

Shepherd is quite willing to channel Gibbs. "Not too many."

xx

It doesn't take long for Jack Sparrow, a.k.a. Matthew Nicholas, to walk into the chapel. Houdini is nearly recovered in that time; fortunate because Sparrow's evidently surprised to be summoned, yet to come upon his partner talking to three guests. He makes his best show of sticking to the amended script. He'd left the last public encounter with his partner quite angry with his 'host'.

"_Mister _Pritchard, would you mind telling me why–?" He stops dead when he sees the coffin beyond them. His face goes white under his pirate makeup.

x

There's a difference between a body at rest and a corpse and Nicholas reads this one truly. "My God - _Carly_." Before anyone can make a move he breaks through them, grabs and lifts Simon. "Carly - No!"

"Take your hands _off _her," Jennifer commands as he clutches her body upright to his and contaminates a vast amount of evidence.

Nicholas ignores the command, weeping as shock transmutes to unrestrained grief. He clings to the dead woman, holds her flaccid body tight to his. "NO. You can't be dead. You _can't_. Oh God NO."

Houdini tries to separate them but Nicholas, insensate, clings tighter, his loud cries rising to a keening wail. The more force Houdini uses, the tighter Nicholas clutches the corpse.

Jennifer steps to them and her voice slashes like a sword.

"Mister Nicholas, let go of her _now _or you are under _arrest_!" Shock snares the man's attention and he tries to focus on her through his tears, his face a mask of grieving disbelief. "_Now_."

The distraction is enough for Houdini to gain the upper hand and pry them apart. He eases Simon's body back into the casket. Her head lolls, limp. It must be lifted and her hair straightened before she can rest in the coffin.

Nicholas stands beside them, unable to stop weeping. "No, Carly, you can't be dead. You _can't_." He whirls on Jennifer who had made the outrageous threat but all he can see is Elvira. "What did you do to her? WHAT DID YOU DO?"

x

Jennifer is ready for the distraught man's fist. She shifts aside and catches the wrist as it goes by, uses his momentum to spin him about, bends his wrist and kicks the backs of his knees. He slams to the floor on his knee, his arm extended up behind him, her arm pressed to the back of his elbow, his wrist bent back unnaturally.

His screaming cries continue, his wailing so mindless she doubts he feels the pain.

Jennifer allows five seconds of this and then looks to Michelle, her message clear. Michelle comes down on one knee before the hysterical man, careful of her posture in the miniscule costume and the slap reverberates off the close walls.

x

For a long moment there's utter silence. Sparrow stares at Vampirella, stupefied. At Houdini's touch on her arm she gets up and he kneels down in her place, his face before his overwhelmed friend's. "Matt - snap out of it." He looks up to the erstwhile Elvira. "Please, let him go."

Satisfied Sparrow's no longer an out-of-control threat, Jennifer releases him and takes a step back out of range. She won't let down her guard.

Houdini remains kneeling before the pirate, clutches his friend's shoulders and speaks in a calm but compelling voice. "Matt, she's dead. I don't know how or why but we're gonna find out. These three are Federal Officers. 'Elvira' is Chief Investigator, the others are her Agents."

'Close enough for field work,' Shepherd thinks. Since becoming Director, she doesn't relish Field work, but the explanation penetrates the man's mind. They watch sanity gradually return.

x

"Dead?" Sparrow rubs his sore wrist, trying to take it in. "Carly's really dead?"

"Uh huh. These Investigators are going to find out why." Houdini helps his friend to his feet, and when Nicholas turns to take in the three women his eyes, though tear-filled, are clear.

"Sorry I took a swing at you," he finally says, embarrassed.

"Don't do it again."

Nicholas still clutches his sore wrist, not sure if it's sprained or worse. He doesn't know if he could take the woman on when in his right mind but admits that, when insane, he's outclassed. "I won't."

x

While Sciuto and Palmer examine Simon's body, Shepherd asks Houdini, "Who would want to kill her?"

"_No one_," Matt Nicholas snaps. "She was the kindest, most loving person in the world."

Shepherd won't contradict this assessment, but it's not helpful either.

"I can't think of anyone," Houdini answers more helpfully - but only just. "Carly got along well with all of us."

"One of the guests," Sparrow / Nicholas declares.

"Why? What motive?" Palmer asks, looking back from the corpse.

"Motive schmotive - we sent out random invitations in a _contest_, for God's sake. And _they_ each brought two friends. One of them's a _wacco _who murdered Carly."

Unpleasant though this is, Shepherd has to admit they can't disregard the possibility. "What do–?"

A shrill screech makes her jump half out of her skin. It's followed by moaning and the clanking of chains, then a demonic laugh. "Can you _shut_ that thing _up_?"

Houdini shakes his head. "That's a manual control combo, a signal that we're being called from the control room."

"Can't you go for a simple 'ding'?" Abby asks, annoyed at being interrupted from scraping samples from under the girl's fingernails into a handkerchief. She figures, however, this was how the message had gotten to Sparrow / Nicholas and doesn't envy anyone who was with him.

"Atmosphere. We can be called from a group. This lets us know to find an intercom as soon as we can get out of sight." Houdini goes to the curtain he'd pushed aside to reach the intercom, presses the button. "Yes, Paula?"

"Problem, guys. Carly missed her cue and …. Carly, what are you doing in the coffin already? It's too _soon_."

"Paula," he answers, not sure how to convey it, "Carly's–"

"Just a minute," Jennifer interrupts. "She can see us?"

"Sure I can see you," the voice replies, "I can hear you too, though why I'm talking to _Elvira _I don't know. Will somebody tell me what's going on down there? Carly, you're _supposed_ to be hanging from the staircase. _Now_. Staircase first, coffin _la_–"

"Paula, Carly's–"

"Hold on, not another word," Jennifer commands the men, then steps close to the intercom. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the Control Room, not that it's any of _your_ business. Come on, guys, we have a _schedule_ to kee–"

Jennifer slaps the button, having had enough of the disembodied voice. She turns to Houdini. "I think you'd better take us to the Control Room."

x

They're halfway to the door when the same shriek, moan, chains and laughter erupt from speakers throughout the room. "Bastard." Sparrow / Nicholas returns to the drape, shoves it aside and slaps the button. "Paula?"

"Guys, what's going on?"

"Carly's dead. _Really_ dead. But someone put her in the coffin. We're on our way to you."

The woman's response almost burns out the wires.

x

Jennifer doesn't want to leave either of her Agents behind; both of them have skills that are needed to solve this case and she wants everyone on the same page, but she can't leave the crime scene unattended. Whether it's a primary or secondary scene is still to be determined, and that's on the bottom of the mountain of questions. "Can you lock this door?" she demands of Houdini. "I mean really lock it?"

"Paula can override the lock. She can seal it so you can't even get in with a key."

"Have her do it."

He reaches for the intercom button again. "Paula?" No answer. After a few seconds, "Paula?"

"Yeah," comes the griping response, "'have her do it'. You know, you'll get better cooperation if you ask nicely yourself."

"Paula."

"Yeah, _fine_. As soon as you're out I'll seal everything up tight. I guess our Grand Opening's shot to shi–" Houdini turns off the intercom.

"Please excuse her," he appeals, "she's not usually like this. The schedule is - was - very important if we were going to make this night all it could be. We've all been under a lot of pressure. Two years we've been working for this and - I think everyone's dealing pretty badly with losing Carly."

"I understand, Mr. Houdini. But we're trying to find out why. And who."

"Is there any possibility it _could _be a guest?"

Shepherd would rather not consider that. It would be so much nicer to have someone who knows the victim, but she has no choice. Everyone has to be considered guilty until proven innocent, at least in the eyes of the Investigators. That situation only reverses itself when they get the murderer before a judge. "This building is locked up tight?"

"As a drum. What Vincent said is literally true. No one gets out of here unless we let them out."

"Then it doesn't matter whether it was an employee or a guest. We'll either work it out or the Virginia Police will. Either way, no one is going anywhere."


	7. The Woman Behind the Curtain

Chapter Seven  
The Woman Behind the Curtain

Jennifer Shepherd, Michelle Palmer and Abby Sciuto accompany Watson Pritchard and Jack Sparrow, a.k.a. Harold Houdini and Matt Nicholas, up the stairs to the fourth floor. "What did Paula mean by 'hanging from the staircase'?" Jennifer asks.

"Didn't you see the original 'House'?" Houdini asks.

"Yes," Abby answers. Michelle just nods.

"I've been busy. What hanging?"

"In the movie Annabelle Loren is found hanging from a rope over the staircase between the first and second floors, just off the foyer. We figured people would buy it more - at least not expect it - if someone else were to do it, especially since tonight we have an Annabelle. But that's just a coincidence, we didn't plan for it.

"Anyway," Houdini continues as they climb, "while I distract everyone else, Carly and Matt use a harness to suspend her way off the floor at the top of the stairs. It looks like she's hanging from the rope taut around her throat. She screams, goes 'ARHAHGH' and when everyone runs out she's way up off the stairs - dead." His voice catches and for several seconds he stops walking. It takes a lot to separate the fantasy from the reality. The women see that Matt Nicholas, as Sparrow, is even grimmer. When Houdini can resume, he's even more weighted than his Pritchard persona had been.

"Matt comes back from around the corner, I untie the rope and ease her down into his arms. He carries her to the chapel and puts her in the … the coffin." They reach the fourth floor and turn down another gas-lamp lit corridor.

"There's a load of one-way mirrors around here," Sparrow / Nicholas takes up the story from his grieving friend. "We adjust the lights inside so you can see a bit into the black rooms and her 'ghost' appears and disappears all over the house, in hallways, in people's bedrooms. We have a few holographic tricks so she can–" Grief threatens to overwhelm him again. They halt, wait, and in time he pushes back the pain. "She, uh, she materializes in the room and fades away again when she's - she's scared the crap out of everyone."

x

"But if everyone knows the routine, who are you scaring?" Jennifer asks, trying to find the point.

"That's half the fun."

"Fun," Nicholas gripes. There's no longer any fun.

"These people want to be scared," Houdini concludes, "even if they know the trick. But that's over," he finishes bitterly.

They stop before a large arras, this one depicting a unicorn, the image sharp even in the faded 'black-and-white' material. He moves it aside to reveal a blank wall. "It's all controlled from in here." He presses on an apparently random spot on the wall and a door-sized panel slides aside.

x

As much as the decor of the 'House on Haunted Hill' reflects the mid-1800's, the room they enter is strictly 21st Century. Dominating the opposite wall is a control station with five prominent plasma screens. Two auxiliary screens are on each side of the parent four foot square screen, while a multitude of screens cover the rest of that wall and extend along both walls on this side of the door. Before all is a tremendous console with a thousand switches and buttons arrayed in a complex collection of colors that renders the whole console attractive and organic.

To the Agents it's reminiscent of a mini-MTAC, only more so; Abby's fast calculation yields a total of 105 screens. This is also the only air-conditioned room, free of the Haunted House's pervasive mustiness.

Each of the vast collection of screens displays a different part of the house's interior. At regular though staggered intervals a screen will change to view a different location.

Surrounded by this impressive array of technology sits a blonde woman wearing a blue and red jumpsuit. She manipulates controls in response to the activity displayed on the screens. The 'theater' screen shows the Cowboy, the Phantom and the Bride of Frankenstein in the drawing room, while on the upper right screen Batgirl screams, terrified as a ghoulish figure leaps for her and disappears before touching her.

"Holography," the woman explains, and then turns to them. "Before you say anything, I'm sorry for coming on like the 'Wicked Bitch of the West', but everything about this Opening Night is timing."

To illustrate this, she turns back to the console and manipulates a control on the crowded bank before her. The main screen changes view to a corridor. The arresting if barely uniformed Policewoman walks down a hallway, eyes on everything as she searches for danger she knows lurks nearby. From the floor behind her rises a hideous monster that shrieks at her. Both screams blend into one even as the monster vanishes back into the floor. The hall is empty.

"I do hope no one has a weak heart, but we _did _send out warning literature with the contest materials."

She brings an image from one of the screens on the far right screen onto the main one. Batman, Batgirl and the Annabelle Loren traverse another length of corridor. An ominous laugh erupts over their heads, the clanking of invisible chains approach from before them. They choose a new direction.

"Is there any place that's not monitored?" Jennifer asks during the brief lull.

"The bathrooms," she says with a small smile. "We try not to make you jump out the window while you're taking a crap."

"Appreciated," Abby quips.

"We do have some mercy, Wanda."

"Abby."

"Nice to meet you, but I won't remember any of your names five minutes from now, so if you have no objections I'll relate to your personae. One second." She brings up an image of the curly-haired Gallifreyan Time Lord who walks cautiously down a corridor. Paula waits, her finger on a button. At the key moment she presses it and a large snake drops from the ceiling onto the Doctor's shoulders and mingles with his scarf. He jumps two feet into the air, dislodges the huge reptile and backs off, his face a bloodless white.

"It's harmless," Paula explains. "It'll go back to its nest and Pete will reset it later."

"Is all this recorded?" Jennifer asks.

"Sure is. We need to review everything tomorrow, see what worked and what didn't." She halts, realizing what she'd said. "All except Carly."

x

Paula still seems shaken, apparently barely able to deal with the murder. Jennifer can see she's focusing on her job, faux horrors to push out the real thing. She knows that method too well, she's used it so many times, and now she scans the ever changing screens.

"I count thirty seconds on each sequence when no one is moving," Abby supplies, "and three feeds per screen."

"Exactly right," Paula confirms. "I can control every camera from here, but if I'm not doing it manually, each monitor cycles among three adjacent cameras at thirty second intervals. Everything is recorded, as I said, but it depends upon a motion detector. If no motion is detected, the playback just blinks past. This way we don't waste disk space recording nothing."

Michelle steps up on the seated technician, deliberately crowding her to force her attention. "You record _everything _that happens?"

"Yes..." Comisky's uncomfortable at the vampire's bite.

"You monitor what you're doing when you're scaring people?"

"If this is about aging you, I'm sorry if it made you–"

"It's _about _the attempted _rape _which you could've stopped!"

"Whoa," Comisky's eyes grow wide as she leans away back into her seat, hands held up to ward off the anger. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about–"

"After you logged off," Houdini says, "Dracula came into Agent Palmer's room and assaulted her."

"_Shit_."

"Yes, that's what Houdini said. I–"

"Michelle, we'll _deal _with this," Shepherd cuts in, wanting to get things back on track. "Murder first, then prosecution."

Vampirella turns on Elvira, angry enough to bite.

"Yes," Comisky says, never imagining she'd be grateful for the distraction of a friend's murder. She focuses on Elvira, sympathetic to the vampire but unable to help. She'll try to help later; review the video to see what happened, but Elvira's right, murder first, then attempted rape.

"Everything that moves is recorded, even if no one's watching." She turns back to the outraged vampiress. "And I'm sorry; I wasn't watching. I'd've stopped it. I'd already moved on to somewhere else."

"We'll _talk_."

"Yes, we will," Comisky isn't sure it's an assurance or an admission, but she's freed from further answers by Elvira gripping the outraged agent's shoulder and tugging her back until she's behind her.

"Then you have the chapel on tape."

"DVR and damned right," Paula manipulates the controls, determined to find a murderer, then a rapist, not discounting the possibility that they're one and the same.

The feed comes up on the large screen.

x

Carly Simon lies in the coffin in the sealed chapel. The time stamp on the lower right starts backward. "I'm locking out the hallways," she announces. Houdini, Nicholas, Shepherd, Palmer and Sciuto walk backward into the room and work their way rapidly in reverse through their motions.

The image, running backward at accelerated speed, shows everybody racing backward through their motions; Jack Sparrow backs out of the room. The next change is when Houdini and Palmer back out, leaving only Elvira and Wanda. Wanda backs out, leaving Elvira alone, but the Scarlet Witch returns almost immediately. In reverse time the agents unmake their discovery and back out of the frame, leaving Simon / Cleopatra alone.

Then in a blink Simon is gone from the coffin. An instant later the room is crowded with revelers.

x

"_There_," Houdini snaps a second after the recording freezes on the crowd. "Take it forward at normal speed."

"Well, _duh_." Comisky is equally annoyed at their plans falling apart as she is that she's in the omniscient position and couldn't protect a guest - or her friend - from unscripted horrors. She doesn't look forward to the upcoming confrontation with the enraged agent any more than to investigating the murder.

The time stamp starts forward. Comisky increases the speed until the guests leave. She slows the images as the guests exit very slowly.

Carly Simon appears in the coffin. Elvira, Wanda and Vampirella enter the frame. "Damn," Comisky whispers, summing up their feelings.

x

Nicholas turns to the investigators, disappointment morphing into outrage when he sees their lack of distress. "What the hell's _wrong _with you people? _We missed it_!"

"We never get it that easy," Michelle assures him. "Well," she amends, "almost never."

"_But we missed it. We have no idea who killed her_!"

"Calm down, Mister Nicholas," Shepherd advises." This isn't our first investigation."

"Matt, come on," Houdini urges, taking his friend's elbow, "let's see to our guests and let the agents do their jobs."

Nicholas yanks out of the light grip. "I don't give a fuck what they do so long as they get the fuck that killed Carly."

The look Houdini receives from Shepherd is enough. He knows without their having to say so that his friend won't be the one to mete out justice.

x

Houdini accompanies Nicholas to the sliding panel but stops halfway. "Do we shut down?" he asks apprehensively. Aborting this night will cost more than he can handle, but he knows the decision is out of his hands.

"No," Shepherd decides. "I'm not ready to sequester all your guests, not while we can keep them under surveillance. Go on with your night, as well as you can. Don't let anyone know anything's wrong. It'll give us the chance to observe … a house full of suspects."

Houdini / Pritchard isn't relieved. "How will you find out who did this?"

"We'll let you know," Shepherd assures him, feigning a confidence she doesn't feel.

x

The playback on the screen still shows Wanda, Elvira and Vampirella before the coffin, shot from behind, working their way through slow movements. Rather than smooth motion, their actions jerk from moment to moment like the stop-motion effects in a Harryhausen movie.

"State of the Art DVR - for last _year_," Paula gripes, anticipating Shepherd's question. "I _told _them to spring for a more advanced system, it'd be like watching a movie."

"It wasn't in the budget," Houdini's voice from the doorway is tight with anger. When they look to him, Nicholas has his hand on the inner side of the sliding panel, staring expectantly at Comisky.

Jennifer expects this is an old argument and she doesn't want to hear it. "Why did we miss Simon being put into the coffin?"

"Blame state-of-the-Art."

"_Don't _blame it," Houdini counters.

"Whatever." Gibbs, I need your head-slapping. "Tell me."

"The computer needs two seconds to register movement and start recording. If no motion is detected, the recording stops. That's why we come into scenes already in motion. If someone knows this, they can use a stop-and-start pattern to evade the recording."

"These cameras are hooked to the DVR system," Comisky continues, "but this model is motion sensitive so it doesn't waste space. _But _there's a two second delay before the recording can start. It takes that long, after the computer sent the record command, for the unit to begin."

"Super fast in human time," Abby says, picking up on the thread. She's no stranger to this system and can see why it was chosen. This early in the House's 'mission', they were unlikely to need better. A modern system would have a faster response time, but they don't really need it for the normal operation of the fun-house. After all, it's not like they needed to record or capture a murderer.

"If you were doing it," Abby continues to Shepherd, "you couldn't manage less than four seconds. It has everything to do with reaction time. The computer's lightning-quick, but the recorder isn't."

"How long before the recorder stops?" Shepherd asks.

"You're getting it," Comisky says, admiring the woman's savvy. "If there's no activity, the camera stops recording in three seconds."

"Someone who knows this," Shepherd concludes, "can move for up to two seconds, freeze for three, over and over and never be recorded."

"Jawohl," Comisky says. She quickly turns her attention to an auxiliary screen, brings the image onto the main one, manipulates a control and, after frightening another guest, returns to the conversation. "Sorry."

x

"Would you call up the footage in the drawing room, just at the point when we were locked in at midnight?"

They watch the film, jerky as the images are, to the end where the guests leave to continue the tour. The recording shifts to the adjacent camera to follow Houdini as he leads the group.

Michelle steps up. "Sort of narrows the list to people who know the system."

"Or to anyone with Security knowledge of DVR systems," Comisky counters.

"Or any friend who might have been told anything any time over the past two years," Shepherd says bitingly. "We can't use this to narrow the field enough to eliminate anyone." She turns to Houdini. "How quiet did you keep your people?"

"I didn't impose any 'gag orders', if that's what you mean. While we tried to keep our little secrets, we were promoting where we could."

Great. "You already told us the guests can't get out, how about your people?"

"No. We're locked in. The only way out is a fire."

x

That sounds unpleasantly ominous, but it's Comisky who picks it up. "The fire system is locked into the security system. It's automatic. If a fire breaks out _anywhere_, every door to the outside unlocks. There are more doors than the front one - they're camouflaged and magnetically sealed, so the computer just cuts the power.

"The staff is fully versed in fire safety. We herd everyone out the closest door. Braces under the window bars pull back and the bars drop flush with the sills. Otherwise, I control all the doors and windows from here. No one's leaving until I say they do. Until you say they do," she amends.

"How random was the guest list?"

"The computer selected the winners," Comisky says, "based on entries. We did a lot of advertising, but we also personally promoted so we did have people we knew who applied. I didn't filter them out – fair's fair. I don't _know_ that no one she knew entered the contest or got selected. I have to look."

"Please do so."

x

"I'd like one of us to view any of the footage Simon was in," Shepherd directs. Paula looks wistfully at the large screen, her face betrays her apprehension.

"I'll compile the files," Houdini offers, much to Comisky's relief. "I can have them ready in, say, a half hour. Matt," he turns to the pirate standing beside the panel. He'd been sent out some time ago. "You'd better get back on the floor, but don't say anything to _anybody_. Just keep things moving. As far as anyone knows, things are copasetic."

Nicholas' nod is sharp. He turns an exasperated glare to Comisky. "_Well_? I'm _still _waiting."

She glances at a monitor to her right. "Coast clear," she says flatly. She pushes a button and the panel slides silently aside.

Nicholas / Sparrow shoves past the arras, trailing a wake of fury.

Houdini shakes his head. "This is going to be a hell of a night."


	8. On the Hunt

Chapter Eight  
On the Hunt

The agents step out of the Control Room and pause in the vacant hallway. "We might as well talk freely and just assume Comisky's listening." Shepherd won't waste her breath to give orders otherwise. She knows that, no matter how busy the woman is in scaring a building full of guests, her attention won't be far from the investigation into her friend's murder.

"I can't tell you how badly Nicholas screwed up the evidence," Abby reports. "Prints, scuff marks, DNA, fibers, I'll have to do a whole series of exclusions before I can even begin, and we're a long way from the lab." She doesn't want to consider what's been lost with the moving of the body, and is very grateful Michelle Palmer had gotten a lot of pictures.

Jennifer shakes her head. "Unless I find out she's a Navy or a Marine dependent, right now this Virginia Police jurisdiction. All we can do is hold the scene."

"Yeah," Abby says, "but don't you want to be able to hand them the killer when they get here?" She doesn't seem like she's trying to wheedle her boss, but it's close. "Right now we're out of touch, can't even call 911 without Comisky. We might as well solve this thing."

Elvira looks between Wanda Maximoff the Scarlet Witch and the barely clad Vampirella and puts her hand to her throbbing head. "Gibbs has rubbed off on you both."

"Blessed be," Vampirella mutters.

x

Shepherd looks again at her total resources: a Probationary Field Agent and a Scientist with not even a half-dozen personal contacts with crime scenes. "All right, the first thing we have to do is work out who would have a motive. I don't believe Simon would give away all the secrets of this place, not after working for two years to get them right. It'd be like a magician broadcasting all her secrets. So someone who knew he or she had a sixty second margin while the cameras cycled and also knew about the record timeouts."

"Fairly common knowledge you can get from any spy shop, bank system, et cetera," Michelle says pessimistically.

"But it does narrow things more closely to the staff," Abby insists.

"Then whoever it was had to either kill her in the chapel or elsewhere, get her there and put her in that coffin."

"Not just that," Abby counters. "He had sixty seconds in which to kill her." The sequencing on the ubiquitous cameras would have caught the murder or its aftermath in real time. If Comisky were watching that monitor then, recorded or not, the jig would be up.

"An insider would know how to evade the cameras," Michelle says. "When 'Death' attacked, he disappeared into the smokescreen but I'm sure he didn't go down or up any stairs. He was just gone when the smoke cleared."

"We need to get a map of the secret passages." If the murder didn't happen in or near the chapel, this explains how the body could be transported through a house full of wandering guests.

"Good luck," Abby says. Shepherd turns on her. "I don't mean they won't share, but it's probably a network. We'll need to know where she was killed before we figure out who killed her."

x

Shepherd withholds her comment. Venting will accomplish nothing. "Can you get anything off her body?"

Abby looks from Elvira to Vampirella, feeling uncomfortable and overdressed. She pushes back the scarlet cape and pats her hips. "I didn't even bring a magnifying glass. Or a thermometer."

"Obviously we're dependent upon our hosts for a lot," Shepherd admits unhappily. "But for now we're limited to Houdini, Nicholas and Comisky. Michelle, get everything there is on the other members of the crew. More important, I want you to track 'Cleopatra' as well as you can with those damned cameras. Even with losing her 60 percent of the time, maybe you can narrow down where she was before she dropped out of sight."

"Yes, ma'am." Michelle's content to stay in the Control Room, having had her fill of the Haunted House. She'd come because Jimmy's devoting his full efforts to studying for his Medical School finals just weeks away. She'd worn this costume so she could feel close to him, but the night had quickly become no fun. She heads back to the Control Room, anxious for a chance to leave the 1850's behind.

"Oh, and see if they have a magnifying glass?" Abby suggests with a smile.

"And keep her eyes off us."

Michelle nods, trying not to let her eyes betray how improbable she thinks this is. She returns to the wall, activates the sliding panel and reenters the Control Room.

Shepherd turns to Abby. "Now let's check out the chapel."

"On your six, boss."

Jennifer's glare does nothing to wipe the broad smile from Abby's lips.

xx

Paula, in the Control Room, grants access to the locked chapel. The body of Carly Simon lies in repose, undisturbed since it was grabbed by the distraught Matt Nicholas. They have the images in Michelle's digital camera of how she'd looked when they'd found her. Shepherd is relieved about this because she hadn't anticipated Nicholas, the disguised pirate Jack Sparrow, messing with the body so badly.

She's annoyed about that oversight too, though she won't admit it to her subordinates. 'I've been behind that damned desk too long,' she gripes silently. 'I'm getting sloppy about things I'd pin a Field Agent's ears back for if he did them.'

"All right," she says aloud, taking in the chapel as a whole, "using the resources we have, what can we determine?"

"She's dead."

Shepherd turns on the smiling woman. "I was hoping for something a little more insightful." The woman's distracting scarlet costume, cape and headpiece only reinforce how badly she wants to get rid of her high black wig. She must wait, however, until she can return to their room for fear of contaminating a potential crime scene.

The chapel is more likely a secondary scene, a body drop. The video showed no evidence of murder or a struggle, neither of which can reasonably be expected to fall under the recorder's two second threshold. But as to where Simon was murdered, they have no clue. For that first, they must depend upon Palmer's investigation.

Even with Harry Houdini's help, scanning the DVD videos is a time-consuming task. Furthermore, he must soon return to the party in his role as Watson Pritchard, orchestrator of this horror show, to keep up the illusion that things are under control.

It's more of an illusion, Shepherd admits, than she wants anyone to realize. If the murderer has reason to believe Carly Simon's body her been discovered, he or she will be extra cautious.

If so, however, a multitude of cameras may turn out to be a blessing.

x

Much as she hates to admit it two agents, a scientist and three distracted employees are not enough to sustain two disparate operations. The 'Haunted House Grand Opening' is going to have to go.

"Good luck getting their cooperation when you make that call," Abby advises when Shepherd informs her of her decision.

"I have Michelle backgrounding the employees, you doing a half-ass job on forensics without even a magnifying glass–"

"Hey, my ass is darn cute, and not by half. At least let's give Vampi a chance to check out if someone was being hinky with Cleo before we alert everyone that the party's kaput."

Shepherd thinks it over, searching for an overwhelming reason to order the shut-down. She can't find one. "All right. I don't have to like it. What do you have?"

"Well," Abby steps up to the head of the coffin and, already wearing a new set of gloves, gives the woman's head an experimental turn, "her neck was broken, that takes about seventy pounds of force. I need to examine her, clothes and all, if I can get some tweezers, tape or a decent glass. Everything I need for good field work is in the 'Forenschik'."

The modified red hot rod, successor to the 'batmobile', her old black convertible, is a lab on wheels. It's in NCIS' garage and might as well be on Mars.

Furthermore, though she won't say so aloud and give Shepherd a reason to pull the plug, the 'lab-on-wheels' is, at best, a second-rate substitute for the real thing.

x

"Look at these hand prints," she points out the marks on the woman's neck which had developed over the interval since they'd last examined her. "Whoever broke her had quite a grip." The dark bruising imprint of fingers on the right side of her neck and jaw line is now plainly visible. "Her vertebrae weren't broken badly enough to sever the spinal column."

"You're certain?"

Abby lifts the woman's eyelid, showing the soft tissues she'd examined earlier but hadn't had chance to report on privately - not that privacy means anything in this ultra-monitored funhouse. "Petechial hemorrhaging, indicative of a massive surge in blood pressure. She died of suffocation within four minutes of her neck being broken." Abby turns to her boss, knowing she's preaching to the choir – Shepherd knows these basics – but she's as unable to help it as Ducky often seems to be.

"Most people think the neck break is fatal, but it's the suffocation from the airway constriction as the supporting structure, the bones and the strong neck muscles around it, goes out of line that kills you. The head flops, you can't straighten or position it properly, you go into shock from the injury, blood pressure drops, air can't flow and in less than four minutes you suffocate." She reverently restores Carly's head to a more natural position.

"But if the spinal column is severed, nine out of ten times it'll sever the spine. You're paralyzed, autonomic functions cease, heart stops, lungs stop, no blood flows, probably no bruises or just incipient, subdural bruising. That didn't happen; she wasn't paralyzed. She tried to breathe, hard, for several minutes. Ergo – I just love saying ergo – the spine wasn't severed."

Abby pulls the neckline of the Egyptian Queen's costume, searches the flesh thus revealed until she finds what she'd sought. "There are bruises on her left shoulder, fill-blown bruises so her heart was pumping for some time, about four minutes, before she suffocated. I'd say our perp came up behind her, braced his right hand around the front of her body, got his left hand around her jaw and neck. A sharp twist and the Queen is dead."

'She didn't deserve this,' Shepherd thinks. 'She may have been caustic, bitchy - how much of that was acting? - but she didn't deserve this.'

"I need to get back to the Control Room," she declares, "find someone to interview. Are you going to be all right in here?" She glances about the dim, morbid Gothic chapel and the coffin with its melancholy burden. "What am I saying?"

xxx

For safety and secrecy, Abby is sealed into the Chapel until she signals Paula Comisky she's ready to come out. Back in the Control Room, Jennifer joins Comisky and 'Vampirella', the latter reviewing all the available footage in which Cleopatra appears since their arrival in the drawing room. Party revelers on the screen - probably all but one, Shepherd amends - have no idea that the amusement house is about to become a murder scene, and that fictional ghosts are about to be replaced by a 'real' one.

Even at double speed, there's too much footage from the various DVR recordings to cover in any reasonable time.

Jennifer sits down in a chair beside Michelle and is about to remove the high black wig but she reconsiders it. She'll probably feel even more awkward as a redheaded Elvira, even if she wanted to waste time going through the process of undoing her pinned-up locks. Best to leave unimportant things alone, especially if she has to go about among the other guests. 'At least I'm not ninety percent naked,' she thinks, casting a glance at her scarlet-banded companion. 'If she can endure it, so will I.'

x

"I think I found something," Michelle announces, turns a control to slow down, then reverse the images on the screen before her. Shepherd leans in to watch. "Check out the Doctor."

It's not the Time Lord she refers to but the white coated medical man who quite evidently pays closer attention to the fully attired Cleopatra than to his half-uniformed nurse. "He's been checking her out every time he has an opportunity, and rarely gets very far from her. He thinks he's being discreet. He's about as discreet as an iceberg in the Everglades."

He hadn't been very discreet in the Study when Cleo / Carly had told him off for looking down her dress. More like a firestorm in the Arctic. That incident had been ringing the alarm bells of all three investigators ever since they'd started considering potential suspects.

Shepherd is about to ask how the nurse feels about this, but the hard look the woman on the screen gives her companion when he ignores her is eloquent enough. "Any ID on him? Is he someone Simon 'recruited'?"

"I can see why they made you the boss," Paula Comisky says from the chair to her right as she pulls up the record of invited guests. "Carly did give him a raffle form." In response to Shepherd's questioning look, she explains; "We each had to list any of our friends who we gave flyers to. We didn't want too many friends weighting the exit evaluations. We wanted an honest assortment of reviews. While you were gone I ran down that list."

"How many other staff had friends who won the lottery?"

"She was the only one."

Shepherd looks at her watch, 3:41. There are four plus hours before the front door pops open and Virginia State Police will be on the other side.

x

Michelle has caught Jennifer's not subtle check on the time. "We're about an hour away if Special Agent Gibbs calls the team to rendezvous here, though _he'd _make it in twenty minutes."

The estimate isn't facetious – not by much. Though McGee and David, in Silver Spring, are furthest away, Gibbs, living in the shadow of the Capital, would warp space to get here.

"No, Simon's not in our jurisdiction until proven otherwise." She doesn't want a record of outgoing calls to show they've determined this. She's going to pretend she hadn't been able to call from the Control Room, an excuse that'll fly with the troopers for about half a second. If Simon is determined later to be a Navy or Marine dependent, NCIS can always 'come back in'. "I shouldn't even be holding off calling the State Police from in here except that I want to keep us in lockdown as long as possible, give the killer rope to hang himself."

"And you want NCSI to solve this," Paula Comisky concludes.

"NCIS, but you're not wrong. I'd like us to hand them the killer. But if we can't, then everyone goes under the microscope at 0800."

"Hey, I'm behind anyone who can solve this, I don't give a fuck who."

x

Shepherd swivels her chair around. "Then I want to talk to this doctor. Who and where is he?"

"Philip Billingham, and he's in the room he shares with Nurse Lovelet."

Shepherd won't blink at this designation. "I take it you have an internet connection?"

"Of _course_."

Shepherd chooses to ignore the tone, she's had enough of the woman's brusque manner. "I'd like you to call Abby in. I want her to background this person before we talk to him." She knows Michelle could do the job, possibly not as quickly, but the woman is already tracking other potential suspects - as well as trying to trace the last time Carly Simon had been seen alive and who she'd been with.

Comisky glances away, her attention diverted by something seen on another monitor. She manipulates a control, bringing the image to the large screen before her. Annabelle Loren checks her makeup in a dark window, only to have her image replaced by a grinning skull. The woman retreats back a few steps and the skull emits a maniacal laugh before it fades away, leaves the woman gasping, her ample chest heaving.

x

"Tell me about Matt Nicholas," Jennifer says sharply before the technician can find some other victim to torment. She knows the woman has her job to do, but– "Were he and Carly Simon close?"

He'd been devastated at her death, driven insensate in the chapel and she remembers how he'd demanded to lay hands on Simon's murderer.

Comisky snorts. "He was close, she wasn't."

"What do you mean?"

"Matt's been trying to get into the royal panties for two years. She isn't interested in even letting him get on her barge. She's playing him, getting anything she can by letting him think he has a shot. You ask me, he's better off without her."

"You don't say." Shepherd's not sure which is more interesting, the revelation or Comisky's sudden dismissal of her late friend.

"I do say. Problem is he won't listen." She turns to them. "I must've tried to wise him up a hundred times, but he was so taken with her he wouldn't listen to anyone. Meantime, she was just taking him."

Shepherd hadn't missed the hard feelings Nicholas has for Comisky. His exit from the Control Room earlier, even if they were distracted from clearing him when he'd first wanted to go, had made that very clear. She wonders how Comisky's presumed 'interference' sits with Nicholas now that Carly Simon is dead. "What do you think he'll do if he finds out who killed her?"

Her look is not happy. "Depends on if he can get hold of Bill's scythe."

xx

A few minutes later Abby returns from the chapel and takes her place at another monitor, which Comisky removes from the system and sets it for independent operation. Abby commences an Internet research into the history of Philip Billingham but it's Michelle who has the first break. She'd been tracking Carly / Cleopatra throughout the Haunted House but–

"I've lost her."

"When?" Shepherd is behind Michelle immediately, looking over her shoulder at the image. It shows all of the revelers in a hallway, the view obscured by tendrils of dissipating white smoke. Captain Jack Sparrow is frozen in an angry confrontation with Watson Pritchard.

"After Price / Loren's speech," Palmer summarizes, "the camera stays on the group as they go to the stairs, but they're so spread out at times not everyone is in the shot at the same time. There are a lot of stragglers, the cameras tracked the main group.

"We went through several rooms, sometimes one or more wouldn't keep up with the tour and come in late. It's only when 'Death' takes a swing at Jack Sparrow - Nicholas - that everyone is on the same camera, down this long hall."

"Who's missing?"

Michelle rechecks her list against the crowd on the screen, making certain no one else is unaccounted for. "Just Carly Simon."

Shepherd checks the time stamp in the lower right. "How long has she been off camera?"

"The last time I have her was after the photo session with Price," Michelle says.

"She could be on a recording we haven't scanned." Comisky points out.

"How many more are there?"

"Fifty-seven."

"There's such a thing as being too thorough," Abby mutters from before her own keyboard.

"Well, _sorry_."

x

"Houdini got us moving to the stairs when we were done in the living room, but not everybody stayed together," Michelle cuts in before the women can start sniping at one another, particularly because they're equally right. "It was that twenty minutes before we all appear in the same camera, more than enough time."

"Who are the stragglers?"

"At different points Doctor Who, Batman and Batgirl, _Dracula_ - my personal lead suspect - Doctor Billingham and Nurse Lovelet."

"I'm keeping Dracula in mind too," Jennifer assures her. "Maybe Carly Simon didn't put up the successful fight you did." Shepherd can imagine the woman's death being the result of an unsuccessful advance.

The idiot had tried to molest an accompanied woman in a sealed house. Where was his brain? But perhaps Dracula hadn't intended to leave a live complainant after all. She and Abby will find out the truth of that, but she doesn't intend to let Palmer anywhere near him. The angry woman's liable to leave just enough for her husband's services.

She turns to Paula. "Was Simon supposed to be anywhere special?"

Comisky shakes her head. "She was still playing guest. She wasn't supposed to 'die' until after people went to their rooms or started wandering."

x

Shepherd turns again to Michelle. "Where was Philip Billingham during this straggling time?"

"I lost him and the nurse a couple of times while the focus was on the main group."

"Philip Billingham comes up clean," Abby reports after completing her checks. "Not even a parking ticket. But you don't need a record to kill someone."

"How about the nurse?"

"She's a blank, his guest." Abby doesn't flinch under Shepherd's glare. "I didn't tell anyone about you two when I invited you."

"All right, we'll take it where we can. Michelle, you're with me. Abby, you keep watch."

"Can I get my coat first?" Michelle appeals.

Jennifer looks her over. The woman has been through more than anyone can consider reasonable on this case.

However, she'll also be a powerful distraction to suspects in the upcoming interviews. The two scarlet straps reach from monokini to the gold circlet at her throat and high white collar and only hint at hiding anything. The only true coverage Vampirella has is her calf-high black leather boots.

"No."


	9. Doctor's Exam

Chapter Nine  
Doctor's Exam

Following the directions Paula Comisky gave them, Jennifer and Michelle, in their personae as Elvira and Vampirella, make their way to the room assigned to 'Doctor' Philip Billingham and his nurse. Shepherd has already received assurances from Comisky that no haunting booby traps will be sprung on them as approach the second floor rendezvous. She's had her fill of the special effects of this fun house.

Instead, the camera in the Doctor's room will be on manual control and will not deviate to an adjacent feed if no one moves for too long. The upcoming interview will be recorded in detail.

Shepherd knocks on the door. It opens with a pistol two inches from her face.

The next seconds are a flurry of violence and screaming, the latter from inside. The battled ends immediately with Billingham face down on the floor, his right arm pulled high up behind him by Elvira and with Vampirella's black leather boot on the back of his neck.

"EASY STOP I GIVE," the man cries as loudly as he can past the vampire's strangling pressure.

"Let him up! _Please_!" the white uniformed woman cries from the other side of the bed. She'd leapt there with a shriek as the women burst in and slammed her boyfriend face down onto the floor.

"IT'S FAKE, REMEMBER?" Billingham cries.

"You do not pull a gun on Federal Agents," Jennifer snaps. She signals Michelle to step off but keeps the wrist lock on her prisoner.

"_Federal Agents_? I didn't know, I swear I didn't. It was from the _movie_."

"What was?"

Michelle remembers that: "After the murder of Annabelle Loren, Doctor Trent goes to Frederick Loren's door. Loren meets him with a gun."

"Well, you see what a bad idea that was," Shepherd snaps.

"_Please_ don't hurt him," the almost-uniformed nurse begs. Shepherd looks to Palmer, who has already retrieved the gun from where it had fallen. Palmer shakes her head, indicates the gun is non-functioning. Perhaps the only one that worked was the one the robotic 'Vincent' had used, and it had fired a blank round against a prepared target.

"What do Federal Agents want with _us_?" Billingham demands.

Shepherd releases his hand, lets him get to his feet. She wants him facing her when she tells him: "We're investigating the murder of Carly Simon." She's pleased to watch his face alight with shock.

"_What_?" the nurse cries, incredulous.

"Carly's _dead_?" Billingham demands. "How? Why? When?"

"All questions we're working to answer," Shepherd tells him. "What's your relationship with her?"

"We're friends." Shepherd notes the sour expression on Nurse Lovelet's face. "Why do you want to know?"

"We're looking at anyone who might have had contact with her."

"Phil didn't do anything," the white costumed woman insists. "He's been with me all evening."

"And you are?"

The woman puts her hands up. "I'm not telling you my name, I know my rights, I don't have to say anything."

"Fine with me," Jennifer dismisses her, focuses her attention on Billingham.

"_Whatdayamean _fine with you?" she demands. "For all you know I could be a murderer."

"_Janice_!"

"I don't mean _her _murderer, I just mean _a _murderer. I could be on their Most Wan–"

"She's Janice Puryear and she hasn't murdered anyone. But what happened to _Carly_?"

x

Jennifer has already discredited Philip Billingham as the killer. The chances of his being guilty have dropped too low, not only because very few people can blanch on cue, but only an idiot would make himself the only possible suspect in a locked house full of strangers. She knows from Abby that Vincent Price's film character Frederick Loren had made a similar argument about being the only suspect when confronted with suspicion in the fictional murder of Annabelle Loren, which Simon was supposed to recreate.

There's also the more immediate point of pulling a non-working gun in a house full of nervous guests, any of whom might possess the real thing.

"Tell me about Carly Simon," Shepherd commands.

"I told you he didn't _do _anything!" Puryear insists.

"Special Agent Palmer."

"Ma'am?"

"Take Miss Puryear into another room and take her statement."

"Yes, Director."

Michelle opens the door. Her body language makes it clear Puryear can walk through it or fly through it.

Shepherd has heard the story of the Asian woman's interview with Catherine Leher during the hunt for Siobhan O'Mallory and pities Puryear. Under Gibbs' tutelage, the shy and apprehensive Probette has been fading away, at times replaced by someone DiNozzo has dubbed 'Gibbsette'. She's someone Shepherd is happy to meet.

In the young agent's present mood - spiced by the unresolved aftermath of her near rape - if the nurse insists upon being stupid, Jennifer _deeply _pities her.

x

When the women are gone, Shepherd can devote her attention to her interrogation. "Now, tell me about Simon."

"I've got nothing to say."

"Stupid move, Billingham. You're the only possible suspect and facing the Death Penalty." She counts on the man being even more ignorant than he appears and, after another loss of color, it works.

"There's nothing to tell," he insists, trying to cling to vestiges of bravado. "I've known her for a couple of years. We dated on and off. She gave me an entry form for this contest, I didn't think much about it until I won."

"You've been very interested in her all night."

"What makes you say that?" he asks, suspicion ignited.

"I've been watching." She won't say what she's been watching, has no intention of revealing to anyone the extent of surveillance.

"Well, what's that matter? Like I said, we dated. Maybe I want to see if it's possible to get back together." He realizes, a moment later, what he has said and it flusters him. "That is, I _wanted _to see if we _could _get back together."

"How did your friend feel about that?"

"I - er - I don't know."

x

It seems to Shepherd that he's amazingly clueless, but she isn't about to jump to any conclusions about his precarious relationship with his living girlfriend. She wants to believe no one could be that stupid, but she's met far too many who are. She does, however, want to hear Michelle's report as soon as she can.

She doubts Billingham is guilty, he's too poor an actor to have known Simon was dead before she'd told him. She'd seen the DVR'd glares the nurse had repeatedly given him, however, when he'd been more attentive to his former girlfriend than to his current companion.

xxx

"Damn fucking right I'm pissed," 'Nurse' Janice Puryear proclaims to Vampirella in a bedroom down the hall. "Phil invites me for a romantic fantasy weekend and his old girlfriend _works _here. Turns out she got him the tickets and he's more interested in spending time with _that _bitch than with me."

"Did you know her before tonight?"

"_No_, and I didn't want to. He only sprang this on me after we got here, probably because he knew if I'd known I wouldn't've come. I looked forward to this all week and he ruined it after I got locked in. I'm glad she's dead."

"Did you kill her?" That might account for the many times they were out of sight of the main body of the tour.

"No, but I'd've _helped_."

'And I used to wonder why Special Agent Gibbs head-slaps people,' Michelle thinks. "But you noticed his attention to Simon before that." Even before reviewing the videos, she'd seen figurative storm clouds coming over the horizon for quite some time.

"Yeah, but I just thought he was being a jerk. He had me, looking like this, all set to give him a thorough physical and he keeps checking out the Queen. I'd already given him half a dozen chances, then I decided if he wanted any exam, it was going to have to be a _self_-examination. Then he drops on me that he knew her and used to date her before me."

"How did that make you feel?" She doesn't feel she needs to ask.

"I wanted to _kill _her."

xxx

"I was two seconds away from Mirandizing her," Michelle tells Shepherd as they walk down the hall. "No one's that stupid."

"You're young. You'll learn."

"But after all she did to make herself into my prime suspect, she couldn't have done it."

"Oh?" Shepherd won't criticize this conclusion before hearing what's behind it.

"Not enough time. She says she found out about Billingham's relationship with Simon _after _we got locked in. I'm reserving judgment on the truth of that–"

"Good."

"Until I have more," Vampirella concludes. "But if it _is _true, then she had a half hour to plot the murder, kill Simon and plant her body in the coffin. Even if she's lying about the time, she's not much bigger than Simon is. I can't see her working alone to get a dead Cleopatra into that coffin. And I don't believe they worked together to kill her."

"No." Shepherd is confident in her own assessment that Billingham didn't kill Simon.

"So where does that leave us?"

"Visiting Dracula next."

"I've been _waiting _for that," Vampirella declares, her dainty fangs showing. Elvira stops, turns on her.

"Because he attacked you I consider he _could _be a suspect. If you can do this interview professionally then join me. If you can't, go back to the Control Room and send Abby."

Vampirella's eyes smolder but the fire stays controlled. "I'm staying."


	10. Bite the Vampire

Chapter Ten  
Bite the Vampire

Jennifer Shepherd and Michelle Palmer, disguised as Elvira and Vampirella, stop before the door of the room next to their own. The room is assigned to Dracula and the Bride of Frankenstein, and Dracula had earlier used the connecting door between the bedrooms to intrude upon and try to rape Michelle. Sensing, then turning and seeing the broiling anger in the woman beside her in her red face and flashing eyes, Shepherd puts a restraining hand on the smaller woman's shoulder.

"I prefer Abby here but she's busy and you're the Field Agent," she says, her low, intense voice slicing the angry agent. "If you can do this we go in. Remember, you're a professional, but you're also a Probationary Field Agent. Lose control, lose this case..."

Michelle knows Probies can be dismissed from the Service without recourse. Gibbs would have given her no more of a reminder. She works hard to force her anger down, and after several seconds she forces herself to smile, to keep it from her voice. "Enough said, Director."

But the voice is fake and the smile is feral.

Shepherd doesn't want to bind the woman's hands, only to make sure she acts in accord to the law she's usually so determined to enforce. Trusting the young agent won't lose control, hoping she won't have to fire her, she raps sharply on the door.

A few moments later they hear rustling beyond the wood. "Who is it?" a woman's voice calls.

Tugging at the overgenerous décolletage for the thousandth time, half-sympathetic to the scarlet-banded vampiress beside her, Shepherd never imagined she would ever reply "Elvira."

x

The door swings inward and the Bride of Frankenstein smiles at Elvira. Michelle notes the contrast yet similarities between the white dressed patchwork woman and the black clad Mistress of the Dark, particularly their tall wigs; it's a close call which one is higher. "Hi, Elvira, Vampi. Come on in."

When they step in past the pale and friendly Elsa Lanchester clone, Dracula turns even paler when he sees his guests.

"Hi, Drak," Michelle / Vampirella says, her dainty fangs gleaming in the candlelight but her eyes flaring with hellfire, "I'm _back_."

"Oh, have you two already gotten acquainted?" Elsa asks, surprise clear in her tone. She probably believes she'd been with him through all the time he'd been meeting new people. Michelle will disillusion her about that.

"Oh, we've gotten acquainted, all right," Michelle doesn't take her eyes off the vampire king, though for the Bride's sake she keeps her tone light, "haven't we, _Drak_?"

"I - ta – th - tha - _please_..."

"What's the matter, blood_sucker_? Bat got your tongue?"

Elsa giggles. "That's a good one, isn't it Honey?" She offers her hand to Elvira. "Mandy Gebran. The stammering one is my husband Paul."

"Husband?" Elvira asks broadly.

"Newlyweds," Mandy says proudly, displaying a ring which glints in the candlelight and not noticing how her husband goes even paler under Vampirella's stare.

"How long?" Elvira asks.

"A month Thursday."

Elvira turns cool eyes on the silent husband, watches more blood drain from his face. 'Where's it all going? I can practically hear his heart from here.' She glances at Michelle. The vampiress' glare is deadlier than a stake.

"Congratulations," she says. "We're Federal Agents, I'm Director Jennifer Shepherd and this is Special Agent Michelle Palmer, Naval Criminal Investigative Service."

A loud thump makes Mandy Gebran turn and look to the floor. "PAUL!"

x

Paul Gebran, wearing tuxedo, cape and white makeup, opens his eyes to find himself seated in a dusty chair, Frankenstein's – a.k.a. his own – Bride, Elvira and Vampirella arrayed before him. When he sees the glistening fangs Vampirella displays he wants to go out again.

"Paul, honey, are you all right?"

"I - tha - buu-"

"Let me," Vampirella offers, leaning onto the arms of the chair, pinning Dracula's wrists, putting all her weight on them. "In addition to being a _Lawyer_, I have medical experience. My husband is a _Medical Examiner_ in our Autopsy suite."

"Oh, good," Mandy says, relieved. "You can help him."

Vampirella's angry eyes are inches from Dracula's. "I'll take _good_ careof him." She enjoys the terror in those orbs, smiles to show the deadly fangs and lowers her voice to a whisper. "Like you did with _me_ and _Cleopatra_."

"Cl - c - c - c - c - c - c."

"You remember _Cleopatra_, don't you?" she asks very quietly. "Poor ... cold ... _dead _Cleopatra?"

"D - d - d - d - d - d - d -"

"The dead woman you put in the _coffin_?"

"Cof - cof - cof - cof - cof -"

x

Mandy pushes in beside her. She hadn't heard anything Michelle had said, only the terrified responses. "Paul, what's _wrong_?"

Michelle turns, moves out of the way. "He didn't do it," she tells Shepherd. She's disappointed, but everything Gibbs and Ziva have taught her tells her so.

"You're sure?" Shepherd hadn't had the chance to ask a single question. If Palmer is basing this conclusion on some alleged Wiccan 'talent' she'll regret–

"I've been translating guilty stammering for months," Michelle assures her, leaving _whose_ a question she won't answer. "He didn't do anything -" she turns back to the shaking man, "to _Cleopatra_. As to the other crime, I'll be back."

Mandy turns on them. "What other crime? Would you tell me _what's going on here_?"

Shepherd, not displeased with Palmer's performance thus far, signals for her to take it.

x

"We're Federal Agents investigating the murder of the woman you know as Cleopatra."

"WHAT? You think Paul–" she turns on the seated man. "Paul?" But she doesn't wait for an answer, turning again to confront the agents. "You think Paul did it?"

"He's still on our list," Michelle promises her.

"We've been together all night."

"Not all night. He sailed to the top of our list when he broke into my bedroom earlier and tried to _rape me_."

Mandy / Elsa is stunned, allowing Michelle to conclude. "We'll deal with you two later; you're locked in and going nowhere. Meantime, _you'd _better be careful. Any newlywed who'd try to _rape _a Federal Agent in a locked house could do anything."

x

She turns and leads Elvira from the room, seals the door behind them. "Thank you," she whispers. "That felt so good. But I hope I didn't–"

Elvira silences her with an upraised hand. "I don't think he did it either. He's not off the hook but I don't think he has the nerve it takes to kill and cover it up so we–"

Screams from inside cut her off. The words don't matter to them; the feminine fury and male terror are eloquent enough. "Music to my ears," Michelle whispers, her spirit surfing the crest of rage and panic. "Where to now?" she asks as they start down the hall.

Before Shepherd can answer, they're startled by a shrill screech that's followed by moans and the clank of chains, then a hair-raising demonic laugh. "I'm really starting to hate this," Shepherd mutters.

x

The sounds are a manual signal from the Control Room, undoubtedly meant for them. They turn about to return to that sanctum when Batgirl and Batman come around the corner before them.

"This place sure gets to you," Batman says. They'd heard the sound effect. Someone on another floor could have.

"Yes," Jennifer grants, not bothering to keep in character. Her flat word is markedly different from Elvira's sex-spiced tones.

"We were down in the Den, you know, the black magic room," Batman tells them, "checking out that Book of Shadows,"

"Yes," Jennifer doesn't feign patience, wondering how best to disengage from this pair so they may respond to the signal.

"I think you were right," Batgirl tells Michelle.

"What right?" Michelle's attention still locked on the case, she isn't following this.

"That book doesn't seem like it was written by a Warlock," Batgirl maintains. "I recognized three spells from episodes of 'Charmed'."

"Well, Charmed didn't get everything right," Michelle maintains. "They made witches all women and warlocks evil, but really warlock is just the archaic name for 'male witch'. These days, of course, most Covens use 'witch' as the generic term for–"

"Michelle."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." She turns to the pair. "We have to go."

"Why?"

Michelle considers Batman's question a valid one. They're on holiday without the need - or ability - to make appointments. "We're - um - meeting Wanda - the Scarlet Witch? - back at the den. Look over the books."

"Oh, sure. Mind if we tag along?" Batgirl asks. Michelle realizes that, distracted, she'd made the worst possible excuse. "I'd love to hear from someone who–" is as far as she gets before black robed Death, wielding his scythe, leaps out from around the corner and charges them with a bestial yell.

Batgirl gives a distinctly unsuperheroinelike shriek and she and the caped crusader flee down the hall, the screaming specter in deadly pursuit. He slows after a few yards, turns and comes back to the agents.

x

Up close, the skull makeup is impressive, disguising the features of a tall black man. "I was told to reveal myself to you."

"Thanks anyway," Jennifer quips, happy to be out of that inane conversation but she doesn't want to risk that line being taken too literally. Bill Murphy grins, a chilling effect as the painted-on teeth stretch and part to reveal his real ones.

"Paula says your friend needs you in the Control Room. I'm to show you a shortcut."

Jennifer has had enough sorting through unlikely suspects and relative strangers. It's time to focus on those who actually knew the woman, and had the resources to get her into that coffin, all without being detected. "Before we go, how well did you know Carly Simon?"

"Since the project started two years ago. Matt brought me on. Matt Nicholas is Jack Sparrow, by the way."

"Yes."

"Well, I'm an Architectural major in college. I designed the house, drafted the forty percent you saw from the movie and added the sixty percent you didn't."

"Hidden passages, secret tunnels, that sort of thing?"

"Yep. That's all me."

The agents wonder if Murphy knows how highly he's raising himself on the list of 'suspects with method'. "So, your hidden passages, is there one in the Chapel?"

"Beside the Altar," he answers proudly. "They're well hidden. Interconnecting tunnels link almost every room in the house. Once inside you can go from anywhere to anywhere."

"No monitor cameras?"

"No need. We're the only ones who know about them."

Murphy, as 'Death', is rarely seen, often hidden away. Opportunity is tacked onto Method. But it takes Motive for someone to make the Main List.

"How did you feel about Carly Simon?"

"She was good, nothing like Cleopatra."

This distinction is interesting. "How so?"

"Carly was nice, an okay kid. 'Cleo' was the royal pain in the ass. No one was supposed to mind when she got–" He stops abruptly, his skull paint not hiding the realization he's talking about a friend's real death.

x

The assessment, however, fits with Matt Nicholas'. "If you were to guess," always dangerous, Shepherd grants, "who might have killed Carly Simon, who would you say?"

"Wait - wait a minute, you mean one of _us_?"

"The alternative is a stranger of no more than an hour or two's acquaintance."

It's clear from the expression on his ... skull … that Bill Murphy hadn't progressed to the speculation point. No surprise there, probably the whole staff - except for the killer, is in shock and Murphy is by no means dismissed.

"No one," he says with absolute assurance. "We've worked too hard, too closely, invested too much in this."

"Invested what?" Michelle asks.

"Time, effort, money; we're all _partners _in this. Granted most of us have only known the others since coming aboard – Harry and Matt were the only ones who go way back – but we all have a stake in this."

"And how does Carly Simon's death affect that?" Michelle presses.

It's clear that Murphy doesn't like where she's taking this. "If this is a success, we have long-term jobs and stand to make good money. If the House goes under we lose. A _lot_."

Clearly Opening Night is no time to sabotage the job.

x

"Did you get along with Simon?" Shepherd's tone is blunt. She has no problem with Murphy catching on that he's on the Suspect List.

"Yeah, we did. We all did."

"No one fought with her, had any problems?" The skull is unusually expressive. "Who?"

"Not problems in the way you mean. Matt has - had - been trying to get her to go out with him. She wasn't interested."

"How did Mr. Nicholas feel about that?"

"He asked her out a couple of times, I think they went out for a while but I don't know if anything came of it. I didn't get involved. I have my own life."

"What about the others?"

"Don't know.

"Anybody argue with her, threaten her?"

"Lady, I don't know how cooperative people are in your outfit, but we had a lot going for us and a nice non-boring gig. None of us would've mucked it up."

"Even in the best of situations there's stress."

"You don't know Carly, she was the opposite of Cleo. When there was stress, she was usually the peacemaker. I think that's why Harry cast her as the victim, and the bitch. He liked to cast against type. Her loss is a big blow. We'll have a time filling her place. We've become a team, it's not like we could bring someone in now and get her up to speed while learning to fit in."

"What are you going to do?"

"Me? I'm going to scare the hell out of people with my scythe. As to the others, you'll have to ask them." He pulls up the sleeve of his black robe, revealing a jarring silver watch. "We really should get to the Control room. I have work to do."

"Lay on, McDeath," Michelle says, then catches Jennifer's sharp look. "What?"

"That was worthy of Agent DiNozzo."

"Hey, if you're going to insult me, I quit."


	11. Unmasked

Chapter Eleven  
Unmasked

"I found something really hinky," Abby the Scarlet Witch declares as soon as Jennifer / Elvira and Michelle / Vampirella enter the Control Room. "You wasted your time with Doctor Billingham and Nurse Feelgood - I mean Lovelet,"

"Right the first time," Michelle says sourly. She hadn't been impressed by Janice Puryear in any identity.

"Not to mention Dracula," Abby concludes.

Jennifer had gotten used to being under constant surveillance. She'd long since decided to ignore the snooping as unavoidable, considering the number of cameras and the multitude of images displayed on the monitors surrounding them. Furthermore, she'd ordered the interrogations of Billingham and Puryear recorded on a fresh disk for prosecutorial records, but she resents the scientist's bald conclusion.

"An interrogation is never a waste of time, even when interviewing someone who's not a suspect. What do you have?"

"I have _Vincent_," Abby declares with deep satisfaction. She loves solving crimes in a lab, or in a Control Room, while field agents wear out their feet in that field. But seeing the expressions on her friends' faces, she won't say so aloud. "Watch _this_."

She manipulates a control and the women watch a reenactment of the simulacrum's welcoming speech at midnight. After he shoots the vase, Price replaces the pistol, turns a quarter turn and stops in position for the photo session.

"Now this is the room, through the same camera, right now."

The image on the screen shows no one is present except the Price doppelganger. "See it?" Abby asks.

"Yes I do."

When Comisky looks back up at the faux Elvira, she's angry she hadn't seen the same thing 'the Scarlet Witch' had but particularly that she hadn't seen it an hour ago. Now she's struck by the grim satisfaction in the black mascarad eyes. "What?"

"I know who killed Carly Simon," Shepherd declares, "and how."

xxx

"I've gathered you all together," Jennifer Shepherd announces to the colorful costumed throng in the drawing room, "to expose a murderer."

For a moment Shepherd, though clothed in the image of the Mistress of the Dark, can't help but feel a greater affinity for Hercule Poirot, or perhaps Jessica Fletcher. She has all the suspects gathered in one place about the table at which stands the simulacrum of Vincent Price, who once again faces the table as he had when they'd first seen him. Comisky, still in the Control Room, had reversed the program to return the android to its original position. She's the only one of the staff not present; Watson Pritchard, Jack Sparrow, Death and Jonas and Minerva Slaggs mingle with the guests.

Wanda and Vampirella, a.k.a. Abby and Michelle, also blend into the crowd, both unobtrusively close to the murderer. Paula Comisky will monitor, record and manipulate everything from her domain to expose the murderer in the fold.

"What are you talking about?" Doctor Who demands. This scene isn't in the movie and there hasn't been a murder. At least, not one he hadn't missed and he'll be peeved if he had.

"Yeah," Barbarella agrees, "this isn't from the movie. The 'murderer' was exposed in the wine cellar."

"Unfortunately, that was fiction," Jennifer tells them. "This is reality."

It takes a moment for the significance of her words to hit them.

"You mean," Luke Skywalker asks, "there's a _real _murder here?"

"Yes."

"Who?" Batman demands.

"Carly Simon."

"She's not dead," Indiana Jones scoffs.

Shepherd is in no mood to dwell on coincidence. "You knew her tonight as 'Cleopatra', and she _was _murdered, shortly after midnight, by someone in this room."

"Who _are _you?" Supergirl demands.

"I'm Director Jennifer Shepherd of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Federal Agents are operating under cover tonight to track down the person who broke Ms. Simon's neck and placed her body in the coffin in the chapel. But the murder took place shortly after midnight, right in this room."

"Wait a minute," the Bride of Frankenstein protests. She's still angry about their last encounter, where they'd first accused her husband of murder and then worse. "I remember, after Loren's 'welcome', we all left and went on the tour."

"No. You all took pictures, but when you left Ms. Simon stayed behind. She lingered here, out of view of the camera that monitored the group. She stayed behind with her murderer - and with her killer."

"What?" Princess Leia demands. "That doesn't make sense."

"Actually, it does. You see, her murderer is in the room with us, one of you. Her killer is standing right _there_." She points to the animatronic Vincent Price.

Before anyone can interrupt, Price comes to life.

x

"I was going to ask you if you wanted to leave or not," 'Loren' repeats his words from minutes before midnight, "but it seems the Caretakers have made the decision for you." He moves exactly as he had earlier, following his program. "We're all locked in now. We will all have to stay in this house until 8:00 in the morning.

"But we have some party favors for you, in these little coffins." He reaches out, but unlike the previous occasion his hand misses the first small black coffin on the table before him. He gestures to open the lid he hasn't grasped, his next attempt with the box beside it fails as badly. He misses each in turn.

"This is my wife's idea, I must say I think it's rather dangerous. I suppose you all know how to use one of these things," he says and reaches to draw from a coffin the prop gun. His hand overturns the box instead, spilling the gun onto the table. He never pauses. Though his hand holds empty air his thumb mimes cocking back the hammer. "But in case you don't, you just press down on this lever with your thumb and then," he aims his empty hand at the fragments of the destroyed vase across the room, "pull the trigger."

His finger moves, nothing happens.

He then mimes replacing the weapon, turns and stops.

x

Wanda Maximov steps forward, turns and pushes her voluminous scarlet cloak behind her. "I'm NCIS Forensic Scientist Abby Sciuto. At Director Shepherd's request I searched for and discovered an anomalous sub-program hidden in Vincent's software. Imagine, if you will, Carly Simon standing backed against Vincent for a final photograph when _this _happened."

At the signal Paula Comisky, in the Control Room, activates the program. Vincent reaches up with his right arm across his body at chest height. His left hand, slightly higher, grasps an imaginary jaw and yanks sharply. No one wants to speculate on the strength of the machine.

The lower arm then comes outward. Five seconds later, the robot resumes its original position. "The timing of the action is calculated to ensure it was not recorded on the DVR system set up throughout the house."

Several of the women, having assumed with the robot a similar position to the one Simon had, look worse for it now. Supergirl, supported by her companion, looks ready to faint.

x

"The force of the android's murdering Carly Simon changed its alignment. The murderer didn't have the opportunity to put Vincent back. As it was, using the hidden tunnels that honeycomb this building, he just had time to put Simon's body into the coffin in the chapel and rejoin the group in time to almost be killed by Death with his scythe."

Pirate Jack Sparrow, Matt Nicholas, draws his cutlass with one hand, reaches for slavegirl Leia with his other.

Fast as he is, Vampirella is ready and faster. Her foot comes up in a hard snap that knocks the sword from the pirate's hand. The costumed revelers scatter to avoid the deadly blade.

Sparrow breaks from the crowd and dashes for the door. Vampirella, faster than he and long ready, strung tight as a bow for his move, keeps pace with him.

He turns, swings for her face. She ducks low and her fist lands far more effectively. Ever since Dracula tried to rape her she's been _praying _some man would try something stupid. The devastating uppercut causes most of the men in the room to wince in sympathetic pain.

Vampirella comes up, a hard kick to Sparrow's face staggers him back. The vampire follows, another kick to his chest drives him further back. She pivots, leg extended in a wide arc. Her heel crashes into Sparrow's jaw. She's tried to shatter it.

His body twirls once in mid-air and he slams face down upon the floor.

The crowd applauds, cheering loudly enough to strain the walls as Vampirella, facing away, adjusts her straps with shaking hands. Turning back, she doesn't bow. Instead she seeks Dracula's eyes and revels in the terror shining in them.

It feels glorious.

x

Wanda Maximov liberates a set of handcuffs from the policewoman's brief costume, steps forward and affixes them to the wrists of the unconscious pirate.

Vampirella crouches down, the crowd's view is blocked by the Scarlet Witch's fulsome cloak as Wanda secures their prisoner. Vampirella searches Sparrow's pockets and locates his digital camera. Straightening, she pages to the last picture. Satisfied, she returns the camera to Elvira, displaying the image while she tries to keep her churning stomach from ruining the floor.

Seeing the damning image, Shepherd feels no better than her companion.


	12. Epilogues

Epilogue 1

The bright morning brings with it no joy. Virginia State Troopers fill the building, the House on Haunted Hill is now under their control. The guests have departed, but to Trooper barracks rather than their homes. Harry Houdini and his companions, still in costumes, are surrounded by three over coated Federal Agents, Lieutenant Patrick Carroway and a team of VST and CSI personnel.

"I don't want to believe it," Houdini, face scrubbed of the black-and-white makeup that had characterized Watson Pritchard, says for the dozenth time. No one counters him this time.

"The force of killing Carly Simon moved the robot off line," Shepherd finishes her answer to Carroway's final question. "He couldn't reposition the robot; its placement along with the props had been precisely measured to allow it to function independently. He probably intended to accidentally jostle it later, to cover himself before the next performance."

"I won't believe it," Houdini repeats.

Shepherd knows the man is in shock, and sympathizes, but she's growing tired of the chorus. "Your partner decided nothing beat the free advertising of a murder house like a real murder on opening night." Her words seem to hit him as hard as they had the first time she's told him of the confession wrung out of the prisoner. She pushes this into the chink in his armor of denial.

"I don't know why he thought he wouldn't be caught," she continues. "He seems to have just assumed he wouldn't be. He tried to corrupt the evidence on and about Simon's body with that display of hysterics, but he never did get rid of the most damning evidence: the software or the souvenir photo."

She never did believe Matt Nicholas was stable; this is more than enough proof for her. She suspects this case won't conclude in a jail but an institution.

x

"But he loved her," Houdini protests, still trying to force some sense into the situation. The others can see why he continues to fail.

"At one time maybe he did. Maybe he still does, that's for the doctors to figure out. Maybe he grew tired of a one-sided love affair and she was reduced to a means to an end. He wanted his project to succeed, decided this was the best - or at least the fastest - way for it to become famous." She tightens the overcoat around herself and declares to all:

"I neither know nor care. We have his confession and his own photo of the murder. Computer Forensics Investigators can trace how he reprogrammed the robot, that's all for the Troopers now."

"But he was my partner. My _friend_."

"Then you have my sympathy, Mr. Houdini." She turns to Carroway. "And you have our testimonies. I'll see to it you have our written reports as soon as possible, but we're returning to Washington."

It feels so nice to be able to say that with no chance of being overruled. Their Federal power outweighs the Troopers' local authority, and her car and driver wait outside. "We're going home."

She turns and stalks out to the foyer and the finally open front door. Abby and Michelle have little choice but to follow. "And Abby?" she says as they head for the huge iron gate.

"Yes?"

"The next time there's a Girls' Night Out, _I'm _picking the spot."

"Yes, ma'am."

Epilogue 2

Later this morning, in the huge Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on New York Avenue, Special Agent Timothy McGee has shared a chaste kiss with Siobhan O'Mallory during the traditional exchange of Peace. She has returned to her place at the triple seat in the right side of the Sanctuary.

Reverend George Donaldson, officiating at this morning's Eucharist, has noticed that over the past several weeks their newest congregant has been moving forward in the nave. He used to be very inconspicuous in the middle to rear of the church but since his proposal on New Year's, he's been getting gradually closer to the Sanctuary. Donaldson suspects McGee doesn't even realize it himself but he's no longer inconspicuous. He is, in fact, third row right, closer by the week to where his fiancé sits. Donaldson entertains a private speculation that, at the rate the Investigator's going, if the future McGees don't leave soon for that Ireland honeymoon Siobhan's been filling his ears with since Valentine's Day, the man will be in the Sanctuary with them by the end of the month.

x

The Priest steps down to the head of the center aisle to make his announcement which Church rubrics require over three successive weeks. The microphone attached to the collar of the green and gold chasuble carries his words throughout the huge nave.

"I publish the Banns of Marriage between Mr. Timothy McGee and the Reverend Siobhan Marie O'Mallory. If anyone can show just cause why they may not legally be married in accordance with God's law, you are bidden to declare it. This is the Second Time of Asking."

Next Episode: Ultimatum.  
Consequences of a former case threaten the agents and death invades the bullpen.


End file.
